Saudi Aramco produces about 12.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day — more than the three largest Western majors combined. The ranking below mixes state giants and public companies, by production; note the state-owned firms most people never hear of dwarf the household names.
| # | Company | Country | Ownership | Mboe/d | Output |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Saudi Aramco ⓘ | Saudi Arabia | state (listed minority) | 12.4 | |
| 2 | Rosneft ⓘ | Russia | state-controlled | 5.2 | |
| 3 | PetroChina / CNPC ⓘ | China | state (listed arm) | 4.5 | |
| 4 | ADNOC ⓘ | UAE | state | 4.5 | |
| 5 | ExxonMobil ⓘ | United States | public (XOM) | 4.3 | |
| 6 | Chevron ⓘ | United States | public (CVX) | 3.3 | |
| 7 | Shell ⓘ | UK | public (SHEL) | 2.8 | |
| 8 | Petrobras ⓘ | Brazil | state-controlled (PBR) | 2.8 | |
| 9 | TotalEnergies ⓘ | France | public (TTE) | 2.5 | |
| 10 | BP ⓘ | UK | public (BP) | 2.3 | |
| 11 | Equinor ⓘ | Norway | state-controlled (EQNR) | 2.1 | |
| 12 | ConocoPhillips ⓘ | United States | public (COP) | 1.9 |
Total liquids + gas in barrels of oil equivalent per day, approximate latest full-year figures from company reports (hover ⓘ for notes). Excludes pure refiners and traders. Country-level context: world production · reserves by country · what is OPEC.
Saudi Aramco is by far the largest, producing about 12.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (2024) — roughly three times the biggest Western major. It is also consistently the world's most profitable company. Among investor-owned companies, ExxonMobil leads at about 4.3 million boe/d.
Mostly, yes. National oil companies — Saudi Aramco, Rosneft, ADNOC, CNPC, NIOC and others — control roughly three-quarters of world reserves and over half of production. The familiar "supermajors" (ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, TotalEnergies, BP) are large by market value but mid-sized by barrels.
Saudi Aramco, in most years by a wide margin — its production costs are among the world's lowest at a few dollars per barrel. Among public majors, ExxonMobil typically leads. Profits for the whole sector track crude prices with a lag, which is why earnings collapsed in 2020 and hit records in 2022.
Because most are arms of the state: their oil funds national budgets (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Venezuela). Some have listed minority stakes — Aramco floated ~2% in 2019, Petrobras and PetroChina trade publicly with state control. Buying "oil stocks" mostly means buying the Western majors and independents.