Petronas climbs up Fortune Global 500 list

PETROLIAM Nasional Bhd (Petronas) has climbed up 13 notches to occupy the 120th spot in this year’s Fortune Global 500 list.

Petronas’ advancement in the widely-followed list has a lot to do with the higher revenue of US$44.3 billion (RM163.5 billion) the state-owned oil corporation announced recently.

Fortune also ranked Petronas at number 15 in terms of highest profit gained by a company in the world.

Petronas posted a net profit of US$11.6 billion (RM42.8 billion) in its last financial year, a 23.6 per cent year-on-year increase.

The company, which employs 33,682 people, has assets worth US$73.1 billion (RM269.7 billion), placing it at the 167th spot in this category. Its shareholders’ equity is worth US$42.3 billion (RM156.1 billion).

Russia-based oil company OAO Rosneft, whose significant chunk of equity was recently bought by Petronas, also made its entry into the Fortune list at number 367.

Rosneft’s entry was on account of its significant 291.3 per cent jump in revenue to US$17.7 billion (RM65.3 billion) last year.

In terms of profit, Rosneft was ranked 91th after registering a net profit of US$4.2 billion (RM15.5 billion) during the year. It was ranked sixth for having the biggest increase in profit.

Rosneft, with a staff of 82,000, has assets worth US$30 billion (RM110.7 billion) and shareholders’ equity of US$7.4 billion (RM27.3 billion).

It was reported that Petronas had bought US$1.1 billion (RM4.1 billion) worth of shares in Rosneft, whose initial public offering (IPO) on July 14 is said to be Europe’s biggest IPO in seven years.

Petronas, BP plc and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) between them bought about a quarter of the US$10.4 billion (RM38.4 billion) shares sold in Rosneft.

BP was ranked fourth in the list, while CNPC was 39th.

For Petronas, the purchase of the US$1.1 billion worth of shares in Rosneft is its second biggest overseas purchase. Its biggest purchase to date is still the US$1.76 billion (RM6.5 billion) buyout of natural gas reserves in Egypt in 2003.

Meanwhile, in the “highest returns on revenues” and “highest returns on assets” categories, Petronas was ranked eighth and 17th and Rosneft 12th and 27th respectively.

Within the petroleum- refining industry, Petro- nas and Rosneft were ranked 20th and 31st respectively.

Among companies in Asia, Petronas was among the top 50, occupying the 20th spot.

Source: www.btimes.com.my