Energy

Becoming Big Oil: How the 10 Largest Oil Companies Were Born

Published

8 years ago

November 30, 2015

Jeff Desjardins

Becoming Big Oil: How the 10 Largest Oil Companies Were Born

The size and scope of Big Oil is truly mind-boggling.

For example, Chinese government-owned Sinopec, the world’s largest oil company by 2014 revenues, employs 358,571 people and brought in a whopping $455 billion in revenue last year.

Royal Dutch Shell is no slouch, either. The world’s third largest oil company generated $422 billion in revenue in 2014 and is the U.S. market leader in gas stations with 25,000.

Collectively, the numbers from the world’s 10 biggest oil companies are even more impressive. Worldwide, they generated $3.26 trillion in revenue in 2014, which is more than the entire GDP of the United Kingdom. The combined daily oil production of these same companies is 40 million barrels of oil, enough to fill 2,543 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Big Oil has more behemoth companies than all other industries combined. Even with the recent decline in oil prices, half of Fortune’s 10 Largest Companies list is composed of oil conglomerates. The Swiss commodity giant Glencore, one of the “other” five companies on the list, also makes a significant portion of revenue from trading oil.

The question is: how did these companies get so big?

Today’s infographic, from drill rig supplier Rigsource, tries to answer this question. Looking at a century of mergers and acquisitions, it becomes clear that these companies were not always giants. They became their current size through various mergers and acquisitions that happened over the course of the last century, and it is these economies of scale that has allowed them to generate the kind of revenue they do today.

Energy

The World’s Biggest Nuclear Energy Producers

China has grown its nuclear capacity over the last decade, now ranking second on the list of top nuclear energy producers.

Published

1 day ago

April 17, 2024

Pallavi Rao

A cropped chart breaking down the biggest nuclear energy producers, by country, in 2022.

The World’s Biggest Nuclear Energy Producers

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on Apple or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Scientists in South Korea recently broke a record in a nuclear fusion experiment. For 48 seconds, they sustained a temperature seven times that of the sun’s core.

But generating commercially viable energy from nuclear fusion still remains more science fiction than reality. Meanwhile, its more reliable sibling, nuclear fission, has been powering our world for many decades.

In this graphic, we visualized the top producers of nuclear energy by their share of the global total, measured in terawatt hours (TWh). Data for this was sourced from the Nuclear Energy Institute, last updated in August 2022.

Which Country Generates the Most Nuclear Energy?

Nuclear energy production in the U.S. is more than twice the amount produced by China (ranked second) and France (ranked third) put together. In total, the U.S. accounts for nearly 30% of global nuclear energy output.

However, nuclear power only accounts for one-fifth of America’s electricity supply. This is in contrast to France, which generates 60% of its electricity from nuclear plants.

Rank	Country	Nuclear Energy Produced (TWh)	% of Total
1	🇺🇸 U.S.	772	29%
2	🇨🇳 China	383	14%
3	🇫🇷 France	363	14%
4	🇷🇺 Russia	208	8%
5	🇰🇷 South Korea	150	6%
6	🇨🇦 Canada	87	3%
7	🇺🇦 Ukraine	81	3%
8	🇩🇪 Germany	65	2%
9	🇯🇵 Japan	61	2%
10	🇪🇸 Spain	54	2%
11	🇸🇪 Sweden	51	2%
12	🇧🇪 Belgium	48	2%
13	🇬🇧 UK	42	2%
14	🇮🇳 India	40	2%
15	🇨🇿 Czech Republic	29	1%
N/A	🌐 Other	219	8%
N/A	🌍 Total	2,653	100%

Another highlight is how China has rapidly grown its nuclear energy capabilities in the last decade. Between 2016 and 2021, for example, it increased its share of global nuclear energy output from less than 10% to more than 14%, overtaking France for second place.

On the opposite end, the UK’s share has slipped to 2% over the same time period.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has heavily relied on nuclear energy to power its grid. In March 2022, it lost access to its key Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station after Russian forces wrested control of the facility. With six 1,000 MW reactors, the plant is one of the largest in Europe. It is currently not producing any power, and has been the site of recent drone attacks.