China, India Surge Ahead in Platts Top 250 Global Energy Company Rankings

SINGAPORE, Oct. 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- It's all eyes on China, India and the wider Asia-Pacific region when it comes to rapid financial growth and fast-rising energy companies.  Seventy companies from the region were in the spotlight tonight when the 2012 Platts Top 250 Global Energy Company Rankings^TM were unveiled at an awards dinner in Singapore.  The 2012 rankings reflect fiscal 2011 financial performance in four key areas: asset value, revenues, profits and return on invested capital (ROIC).

China's energy dragon came out roaring with 23 companies on the 2012 roster, giving the country more companies in the Top 250 than any other nation except the United States.  India, too, had a strong showing on the Top 250 list, with 12 companies representing six different energy sectors.

"Chinese and Indian companies' recent surge forward in the energy industry has been increasingly reflected in the Platts Top 250 roster," said Larry Neal, president of Platts, a leading global energy, petrochemical and metals information provider.  "The fact that these Asian companies are outperforming themselves year after year is a testament to the region's enormous growth and energy demand."

Most indicative of the Asia-Pacific region's growth was its dominance of the 50 Fastest Growing Companies list. Asia-Pacific companies accounted for 30 of the 50, based on a three-year compound growth rate (CGR). 

Of the 23 Chinese companies in the global Top 250 rankings, 20 appeared on the 50 Fastest Growing list.  Similarly, India made an impressive showing, with half of its 12 Top 250 companies also among the 50 fastest growing companies.  It was Cairn India Ltd. that topped the global fastest growing ranks, with a three-year CGR of 119.8%. New Top 250 entrant Kunlun Energy Co. Ltd. of Hong Kong was in third place with a 69.6% CGR. 

Western Oil & Gas Majors Still Reign Supreme in Top 10

In an East-West energy showdown, Western majors still dominated.  Western integrated oil and gas (IOG) and exploration and production (E&P) companies took all of the Top 10 spots on the 2012 list, except for one – ninth place – which went to PetroChina Co. Ltd.

ExxonMobil reigned supreme in the number one spot of the Top 250 roster for the eighth consecutive year.  Anglo-Dutch major Royal Dutch Shell plc moved up from sixth position to second, displacing U.S. major Chevron to third.  ConocoPhillips dropped one place from seventh to eighth.

Although French major Total slipped from fifth position to seventh, other European majors saw improvements.  Like Shell, Norway's Statoil also ascended, climbing from 11^th place to sixth between the 2011 and 2012 rosters.  One of the standout movers among the Top 10 and the overall rankings was BP.  The U.K. oil major took fourth position on this year's list, after having plummeted from second place in 2010 to 118^th place last year after more than $38 billion in losses from the Macondo oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Other majors, including Russian oil and gas giants, held on to their relatively high global rankings, despite slipping in the standings.  Gazprom (Open Joint Stock Company – OJSC Gazprom) dropped to fifth place this year from third place, while Rosneft dipped from ninth to 10^th.  OJSC LUKOIL slipped out of the Top 10 this year to 11^th place.

ROIC Shows Growth Globally, Across Energy Sectors

Of the four financial indicators measured by the Platts Top 250 roster, ROIC clearly pinpointed sectors and companies demonstrating dynamic growth.  This year's Top 10 ROIC performers not only hailed from diverse countries but were diverse by company type, including an upstream gas player, two coal companies and an electric utility, illustrating that high rates of return on invested capital were by no means confined to the oil and gas sector.

In the lead was Russian natural gas E&P company OAO NOVATEK, with an ROIC of 35.5% and an overall Top 250 ranking of 74.  Just behind, by only 0.2%, is Coal India Ltd.  South Africa's Exxaro Resources Ltd., a new entrant to the Platts global listing, was the other coal company to make the Top 10 ROIC ranks, with a return on invested capital of 22.8%.

It's notable that of the leading ten ROIC performers, only one was among the Top 10 of the overall Top 250 roster – ExxonMobil – which came in with an ROIC of 23.1%.

Other firms on the Top 10 ROIC roster were Russia's TNK-BP, Colombia's Ecopetrol, Brazil's Electropaulo Metropolitana Eletricidade de Sao Paulo SA, Japan's TonenGeneral Sekiyu K.K., Hong Kong-based China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) Limited and Canada's Imperial Oil.

Top 250 Newcomers and "Biggest Mover"

Thirty-six companies entered the 2012 Platts Top 250 Global Energy Company Rankings, mostly from North America.  Of the new entrants, 18 were U.S.-based companies and five were Canadian, with the majority involved in E&P.  The nine other new entrants, five of which were from China, were a more diverse group of utilities, independent power producers and coal sector companies.

Marathon Petroleum Corp., created by the split of the upstream and downstream segments of the former Marathon Oil Corp., was the highest ranked newcomer, entering at 24^th place in the overall global rankings.  The upstream spin-off, which retained the name Marathon Oil Corp., entered at rank 52.

Of companies already on the Top 250 list, the year's "biggest mover" was U.S. exploration and production company EOG Resources, Inc., which jumped 146 places to position 87 from the prior year's 233.

An in-depth analysis of this year's rankings by Ross McCracken, managing editor of Platts Energy Economist, is featured in the November issue of Platts Insight Magazine. Full details of the rankings may be found at http://top250.platts.com/.  A press kit is available at this link: http://platts.com/MediaKits/mediaTop2502012. 

The Platts Top 250 Global Energy Company Rankings™ are based on data compiled and maintained by S&P Capital IQ, which, like Platts, is a part of The McGraw-Hill Companies.  To be ranked, companies must have assets greater than US$4.0 billion and must be publicly listed.

The rankings, now in their 11^th year, were announced at the Platts Top 250 Asia Awards Dinner held in partnership with Singapore International Energy Week for a fourth consecutive year and sponsored by OpenLink, a developer of energy and financial trading and risk management  software solutions.

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SOURCE Platts