Please bear with me while I start with a very basic fact, state owned oil companies as the name suggests are owned by the state, or in other words, the government of that country. Unlike private owned companies like BP or Chevron for example, state owned oil companies do not have to publish any statistics about their operation. No financial records, no quantities of products produced or sold, nothing unless the government decides that a certain piece of information is made available. Some provide virtually no useful information about their operations at all.

Main National Industry

Some provide over 20% of the revenue for their country. Combined, all the world's state oil companies own 90% of the current known world oil reserves and provide nearly half the world supply. This makes them extremely important and powerful to the owner nation.

Secrecy

Many nations that operate a state owned oil company are not democracies and face no internal pressure to publish any information about the organisation's finances, volume figures, current or planned operations. Any internal pressure is quickly depressurized.

They secretly go about their business. This is all ok, it's up to them, right? But, the products they are in control of are damaging the world for everyone globally, so it is everyone's business.

About The Author
Jane Duncan
Chewells Contributor

Jane is passionate about the environment, she is our main contributor for the renewable industry blogs. She... »

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Replies

• Qasim (Feb 2, 2024)
  Some countries like to have a policy of selling some of their oil to make money for the here and now, plus keeping some in the ground for the future. Sell one barrel, keep one barrel in the ground and store another in tanks above ground. All the work in exploring and accessing this underground stored oil is done, all they got to do is turn the taps on when they are ready.

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