Liabilities and stockholders' equity of the world's leading publicly traded oil and gas corporations

Abstract

Subject. The article addresses liabilities and equity of twenty five leading publicly traded oil and gas companies from 2006 through 2018. Objectives. The focus is on determining the current values of the main components of liabilities and equity, identifying the key trends over the period under study, and factors that led to changes. Methods. The study rests on the methods of comparative and financial-economic analyses, summarizing financial reporting data. Results. I determined changes in the size and structure of liabilities and equity in the stock market sector of the industry and established the main drivers of the transformation. I revealed an increase in the balance sheet valuation of liabilities and equity of most of the investigated companies within the studied period, despite a noticeable decrease in their value after the industry crisis. The components of liabilities and equity remained approximately equal, but the transformation in the ratio between the components occurred within the indicators themselves. The long-term component started prevailing in the liabilities’ structure. It was driven by growing total debt, which almost equaled the value of accounts payable. As a result, the total debt became the dominant component of long-term liabilities, and accounts payable retained key positions only in the short-term component. In turn, an increase in the share of minority shareholders was noted in the structure of equity, however their role for the industry’s stock market sector is still insignificant. Conclusions. The main contribution to the growth of liabilities in the stock market sector of the oil and gas industry is made by the increase in the long-term component of the total debt of companies.