Largest Oil Companies in the World by Revenue

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Saudi Aramco is the largest oil company in the world by trailing 12-month (TTM) revenue, at $487.9 billion. Two Chinese state-controlled groups follow closely: Sinopec at $444.7 billion and PetroChina at $441.0 billion. Exxon Mobil, at $361.1 billion, is the largest U.S. oil company and fourth overall. Revenue is only one measure of size, though, and the order changes a lot when you look at market value, profit or business model instead.

What the Ranking Measures

The order is based on trailing 12-month revenue: total sales over the most recent four reported quarters, converted to U.S. dollars. Three features of that method shape who appears and where.

• Revenue is the top line, not profit. It records what a company sells, including fuel, chemicals and products it bought from someone else, so a refiner buying crude at market prices can post enormous revenue on a thin margin.
• Only publicly traded companies are ranked. Every entry has a stock ticker. Wholly state-owned oil companies with no listed shares are not part of this ranking, however much oil they produce. National Iranian Oil Co. and Kuwait Petroleum Corp. are examples. Aramco is included because a minority stake has traded on the Saudi Exchange (Tadawul) since its 2019 IPO.
• Currency moves positions. Sinopec and PetroChina report in Chinese yuan, Equinor’s home market is Norway, and Indian and Japanese companies report in rupees and yen. A stronger or weaker dollar can shift a company up or down the table even when its sales in local currency are unchanged.

Revenue also follows oil and gas prices closely. When crude prices rise, the same volume of barrels produces a larger top line. The ranking therefore changes with the commodity cycle as well as with company performance.

Why Revenue Rank and Company Value Diverge

Market capitalization and revenue often point in different directions. Some contrasts from the top 25:

Sinopec has the second-highest revenue but a market value below Chevron, which ranks eighth by sales. ConocoPhillips and CNOOC sit near the bottom of the revenue list, yet each is valued above several companies that sell two to seven times as much.

Business model explains much of this. Sinopec is primarily a refiner and fuel marketer, and refining and retail generate large volumes on narrow spreads. ConocoPhillips and CNOOC are mainly upstream companies: they explore for and produce oil and gas, so most of their revenue comes from their own reserves. Investors typically pay more per dollar of sales for that kind of revenue because more of it can reach the bottom line, although upstream earnings also swing harder with commodity prices.

Using the Ranking to Compare Oil Stocks

When comparing entries:

1. Match the business model. Compare refiners with refiners and producers with producers, and read revenue alongside profit and market cap.
2. Check how you can buy it. Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, TotalEnergies and the U.S. refiners trade on the NYSE. Aramco trades only in Riyadh. Some Chinese and Indian shares are listed mainly on home exchanges, and U.S. access may be limited or available only over the counter. Exxon Mobil and Chevron are also components of the S&P 500, so many U.S. index funds already hold them.
3. Weigh state control and currency. Government-controlled companies can put national policy goals alongside shareholder returns, and a foreign-listed stock adds exchange-rate exposure on top of oil-price exposure.

The Types of Companies on the List

“Oil company” covers several distinct businesses, and the ranking mixes them together.

Integrated Oil Companies

Integrated companies run both upstream operations (exploration and production) and downstream operations (refining, transportation, chemicals and retail). Aramco, Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, TotalEnergies and Chevron all fit this model. TotalEnergies, headquartered in France, also produces low-carbon electricity.

National Oil Companies

Several of the largest entries are controlled by their governments, even though some of their shares trade publicly. PetroChina is the listed unit of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. and accounts for roughly half of China’s domestic oil output and about 60% of its gas output. Sinopec is the listed arm of China Petrochemical Corp. Petrobras (Brazil), Indian Oil and ONGC (India), and Aramco also have their governments as controlling shareholders.

Independent Refiners

Phillips 66, Marathon Petroleum and Valero refine crude into gasoline, diesel and other products without large production arms of their own. Valero describes itself as the largest independent petroleum refiner in the world, with 15 refineries in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. plus 12 U.S. ethanol plants. Marathon also runs pipelines and a branded retail network.

Midstream Pipeline Operators

Energy Transfer, Enterprise Products, Plains All American Pipeline and Plains GP move and store oil, gas and natural gas liquids, earning fees and marketing margins rather than selling their own production. Plains GP holds the general partner interest in Plains All American, so the two entries largely reflect the same pipeline business.

The Big Five Oil Majors

Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and TotalEnergies are commonly called the oil majors or the Big Five. They are large, investor-owned integrated companies that mostly took their current form in a merger wave around the turn of the century, including Exxon’s 1999 merger with Mobil and Chevron’s 2001 acquisition of Texaco. ConocoPhillips is sometimes counted with this group, though it later became a pure upstream company.

All five rank in the top eight by revenue, but their market values differ widely. Exxon Mobil leads at $669.2 billion, followed by Chevron at $410.2 billion, Shell at $279.3 billion and TotalEnergies at $193.4 billion. BP is the smallest at $114.6 billion, even though its revenue is higher than both TotalEnergies’ and Chevron’s.

The majors, and Aramco, also run large international trading divisions that buy, sell and ship crude, refined products, gas and power for third parties as well as for their own systems. Traded volumes flow through reported revenue, which is one reason the European majors can post sales out of proportion to their own production.

BP vs. Saudi Aramco

BP and Aramco are both integrated oil and gas companies, but they differ in almost every structural respect.

Scale. Aramco’s revenue is about 2.2 times BP’s, but its market value is roughly 15 times larger. Using the figures in the table, Aramco’s market cap equals about 3.4 years of revenue, while BP’s equals about half a year. That gap reflects what sits behind the revenue. Aramco is the world’s largest oil-producing company and sells crude from Saudi reserves that are among the cheapest to extract anywhere. A larger share of BP’s sales comes from refining, marketing and trading barrels it does not produce, which carries lower margins.

Ownership and access. The Saudi state keeps the vast majority of Aramco’s shares, and only a small free float trades on Tadawul. Aramco’s 2019 listing was the largest IPO on record at the time, but its shares are not listed on a U.S. exchange. BP has no controlling shareholder. It is listed in London, and U.S. investors can buy its American depositary shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

Strategy. Aramco’s business centers on hydrocarbons and chemicals. BP has invested in bioenergy and hydrogen alongside oil and gas and sells products through consumer brands such as Castrol, Aral and Amoco. It has also carried large legal and cleanup costs since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill, an event that reshaped its asset base.

Aramco is larger on every measure in the table. For an investor, the choice is between exposure to a single state-controlled producer and a widely held company running a mixed, lower-margin portfolio.

Where the Largest Oil Companies Are Based

Of the 30 companies in the full list, the United States accounts for 10, the most of any country. These are Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Phillips 66, Marathon Petroleum, Valero, Energy Transfer, ConocoPhillips, Enterprise Products, Plains All American and Plains GP. Many of the U.S. names are refiners or pipeline operators rather than producers. India has four entries (Indian Oil, ONGC, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum) and China has three (Sinopec, PetroChina and CNOOC). Japan and the U.K. have two each. Saudi Arabia, France, Norway, Brazil, Italy, Thailand, Spain, Poland and South Korea have one each.

Saudi Arabia has a single dominant national company, while the U.S. industry is split among many listed firms specializing in different parts of the supply chain.

The Bottom Line

For investors comparing oil stocks, revenue rank says little about value on its own. Refiners and traders post huge sales on thin margins, while upstream producers like ConocoPhillips and CNOOC earn higher valuations per dollar of sales. Compare companies with the same business model, read revenue alongside profit and market cap, and factor in state control, currency exposure and whether the shares trade on a U.S. exchange.