The following is a list of notable companies in the petroleum industry that are engaged in petroleum exploration and production. The list is in alphabetical order by continent and then by country. This list does not include companies only involved in refining and marketing.
Petroleum engineering is a field of engineering concerned with the activities related to the production of hydrocarbons, which can be either crude oil or natural gas. Exploration and production are deemed to fall within the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry. Exploration, by earth scientists, and petroleum engineering are the oil and gas industry's two main subsurface disciplines, which focus on maximizing economic recovery of hydrocarbons from subsurface reservoirs. Petroleum geology and geophysics focus on provision of a static description of the hydrocarbon reservoir rock, while petroleum engineering focuses on estimation of the recoverable volume of this resource using a detailed understanding of the physical behavior of oil, water and gas within porous rock at very high pressure.
Tesoro Corporation, known briefly as Andeavor, was a Fortune 100 and a Fortune Global 500 company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, with 2017 annual revenues of $35 billion, and over 14,000 employees worldwide. Based on 2017 revenue, the company ranked No. 90 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
Hydrocarbon exploration is the search by petroleum geologists and geophysicists for deposits of hydrocarbons, particularly petroleum and natural gas, in the Earth's crust using petroleum geology.
The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation, and marketing of petroleum products. The largest volume products of the industry are fuel oil and gasoline (petrol). Petroleum is also the raw material for many chemical products, including pharmaceuticals, solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, synthetic fragrances, and plastics. The industry is usually divided into three major components: upstream, midstream, and downstream. Upstream regards exploration and extraction of crude oil, midstream encompasses transportation and storage of crude, and downstream concerns refining crude oil into various end products.
Marathon Petroleum Corporation is an American petroleum refining, marketing, and transportation company headquartered in Findlay, Ohio. The company was a wholly owned subsidiary of Marathon Oil until a corporate spin-off in 2011.
The American Petroleum Institute (API) is the largest U.S. trade association for the oil and natural gas industry. It claims to represent nearly 600 corporations involved in production, refinement, distribution, and many other aspects of the petroleum industry.
The oil and gas industry is usually divided into three major sectors: upstream, midstream and downstream. The upstream sector includes searching for potential underground or underwater crude oil and natural gas fields, drilling exploratory wells, and subsequently operating the wells that recover and bring the crude oil or raw natural gas to the surface.
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation is Kuwait's major national oil company, headquartered in Al Kuwait.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited is a state-owned oil company in Nigeria. Still a fully-owned government company, it was transformed from a corporation into a limited liability company in July 2022. NNPC Limited is the only entity licensed to operate in the country's petroleum industry. It partners with foreign oil companies to exploit Nigeria's fossil fuel resources. The NNPC, with an asset of $153B (USD), is the largest national oil company in Africa. The company boasts of extensive infrastructure and investment in the downstream, midstream and upstream of the Nigerian petroleum industry.
Pakistan State Oil is a Pakistani petroleum corporation involved in marketing and distribution of petroleum products. It has a network of 3,689 petroleum filling stations, out of which 3500 outlets serve the public retail sector and 189 outlets serve wholesale bulk customers. Pakistan State Oil is Pakistan's largest fuel marketing company.
Mari Petroleum Company Limited (MPCL) (Urdu: مری پیٹرولیم) is a Pakistani petroleum exploration and production company based in Islamabad, Pakistan. The company is controlled by the Fauji Foundation with 40 percent shares.
The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) is an Indian central public sector undertaking under the ownership of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India. The company is headquartered in Delhi. ONGC was founded on 14 August 1956 by the Government of India. It is the largest government-owned-oil and gas explorer and producer in the country and produces around 70 percent of India's domestic production of crude oil and around 84 percent of natural gas. ONGC is vertically integrated across the entire oil and gas industry. In November 2010, the Government of India conferred the Maharatna status to ONGC.
Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) is an Indian public sector undertaking (PSU) under the ownership of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India. It operates three refineries in Bina, Kochi and Mumbai. BPCL is India's second-largest government-owned downstream oil producer, whose operations are overseen by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. BPCL was ranked 309th on the Fortune list of the world's biggest PSUs in 2020, and 1052nd on Forbes's "Global 2000" list in 2023.
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) is an Indian public sector undertaking in petroleum and natural gas industry, headquartered in Mumbai, and a subsidiary of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), which is owned by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India.
Gull Petroleum is a petroleum distributor in Australia. Founded in Perth, Western Australia in 1976, it was later owned by Puma Energy and now owned by Chevron Corporation (Caltex).
Shandong Molong Petroleum Machinery Company Limited, or Shandong Molong, is a private petroleum machinery manufacturer in Shouguang, Shandong, China. It offers oil well pump, sucker rods, oil well pipes and other oil drilling and oil extraction machinery products. Petrochina and Sinopec are its major customers.
Indian Oil Corporation Limited, trading as IndianOil, is an Indian multinational oil and gas company under the ownership of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India. Registered in Mumbai but headquartered in New Delhi, it is a public sector undertaking whose operations are overseen by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Indian Oil is ranked 94th on the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's biggest corporations as of 2022. It is the largest government owned oil producer in the country both in terms of capacity and revenue. It has consolidated refining capacity of 80.55MMTPA which it intends to increase to 107MMTPA by 2024-25. As of 31 March 2021, Indian Oil's employee strength is 31,648, out of which 17,762 are executives and 13,876 non-executives, while 2,776 are women, comprising 8.77% of the total workforce. As On 31.3.2024 IOC Employed 30,321 Employees. Out Of Which Executives Account 18,570 & Non Executives Account 11,751.
Oil and gas reserves denote discovered quantities of crude oil and natural gas that can be profitably produced/recovered from an approved development. Oil and gas reserves tied to approved operational plans filed on the day of reserves reporting are also sensitive to fluctuating global market pricing. The remaining resource estimates are likely sub-commercial and may still be under appraisal with the potential to be technically recoverable once commercially established. Natural gas is frequently associated with oil directly and gas reserves are commonly quoted in barrels of oil equivalent (BOE). Consequently, both oil and gas reserves, as well as resource estimates, follow the same reporting guidelines, and are referred to collectively hereinafter as oil & gas.
