Assets of the World's Leading Publicly Traded Oil and Gas Corporations

Abstract

Subject. The article focuses on assets of twenty five leading public oil and gas companies from 2006 through 2018. Objectives. The study aims to trace key trends in assets of corporations in the oil and gas industry, identify main changes s within the studied period, establish factors that led to the transformation. Methods. I employ methods of comparative and financial-economic analysis, summarizing financial reporting data. Results. The paper determines changes in the value and structure of assets in the stock market sector of the industry and defines the main drivers of the transformation, based on the comprehensive analysis of balance sheets of twenty five oil and gas companies. The findings disclose an increase in the book value of assets in the majority of leading publicly traded oil and gas companies. Large mergers and acquisitions and agreements for new field development also contributed to the increase. I established that the protracted industry crisis resulted in reducing the proportion of current assets in order to release funds for revenue increase. That was why oil and gas companies sought to accelerate the collection of receivables, primarily by means of trade component. Furthermore, I revealed that they channeled a part of funds thus collected to short-term financial investments. Conclusions. The increase in the book value of assets in the stock market segment of the oil and gas industry is mainly due to the non-current component.