How Big is Big Oil?
Article from: OGEL Archive issue , in Roundup of Articles
Introduction
It is old wisdom that you aren't hurt by what you don't know, but by what you do know that isn't so. So it is with the discussion of U.S. energy policy by those who think of the major U.S. petroleum companies as "Big Oil" and invulnerable to the vicissitudes of international trade. Viewed from an international perspective, the largest U.S. oil companies are not giants but midgets and getting smaller all the time. Nor are they invulnerable. Measured by reserve base - the number of barrels of oil owned in the ground - Exxon, even after its merger with Mobil, is the world's 12th ...