Rosneft surpassed ExxonMobil in the ranking of the largest oil and gas companies in the world

Saudi Arabia's Saudi Aramco, Iran's NIOC (National Iranian Oil Company) and China's CNPC (China National Petroleum Corporation) retained the top three positions.

ExxonMobil has occupied the fourth position for the last seven years. "Rosneft's move [from fifth] to fourth place is partly due to the Russian company's increased gas production, as well as lower Exxon results," said Alex Shindelar, President of Energy Intelligence.

The top 10 also includes American Chevron (6th place), British Shell (9th place) and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company ADNOC (10th place). The top ten companies account for about 34% of global oil and gas production, the agency explains.

In addition to Rosneft, other Russian companies entered the top 100: Gazprom (7th place along with Venezuela's PDVSA), Lukoil (13th place), Surgutneftegaz (30th place), Novatek (32nd place), Tatneft" (52nd place) and Russneft (85th place).

According to Energy Intelligence experts, the rating data reflect the ongoing consolidation and strategic contradictions between international oil and gas companies, which include both changing priorities in the field of refining and marketing, and the need to preserve opportunities in the field of exploration and production.

Energy Intelligence Top 100 Rating: Global NOC and IOC Rankings is the only ranking system that compares national and private oil and gas companies. When compiling the rating, six parameters are used: oil reserves, natural gas reserves, oil production, natural gas production, refinery distillation capacity and sales volume of petroleum products.