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Reports by Luisa Palacios & Catarina Vidotto Caricati • May 18, 2023
This report represents the research and views of the author. It does not necessarily represent the views of the Center on Global Energy Policy. The piece may be subject to further revision. Contributions to SIPA for the benefit of CGEP are general use gifts, which gives the Center discretion in how it allocates these funds. More information is available at Our Partners. See below a list of members that are currently in CGEP’s Visionary Annual Circle.
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Anonymous
the bedari collective
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Breakthrough Energy LLC
Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF)
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Kimberly and Scott Sheffield
National oil companies (NOCs) produce about half of the world’s oil, hold more than half of its refining capacity, and own the bulk of oil and gas reserves. Most of these companies come from emerging markets and depend heavily on international capital to finance their operations. As financial institutions consider more carefully environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks in their investment decisions, an accurate assessment of the ESG performance of NOCs will be vital. Assessment of ESG risks in NOCs is currently hobbled by both the considerable divergence in ESG ratings for any given company and the complex nature of NOCs’ state ownership structure, which isn’t always readily encapsulated in ESG scores. A clearer picture of these companies’ ESG performance could be useful to investors.
This paper, part of the Financing the Energy Transition initiative at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA, aims to provide a better understanding of what impacts the ESG performance of NOCs in emerging markets. The authors survey ESG ratings of the largest national oil and gas companies in emerging markets for which such ratings are available, alongside the scores of some of the largest integrated oil and gas companies from advanced countries. The authors find a significant divergence in ESG scores for each single company, which raises questions about their individual stand-alone value in assessing the relative ESG performance of companies in the integrated oil and gas space.
An analysis of average NOC ESG ratings—imperfect as they are—against those of international oil companies (IOCs), however, indicates much lower performance of NOCs on governance specifically (i.e., the G in ESG). Ownership by a state creates unique governance challenges—which, in turn, affect environmental and even social efforts—and deserves further exploration to determine which factors within state-owned companies can improve or impair ESG performance, to facilitate a more reliable understanding of NOCs’ ESG risks.
Additional takeaways from the report include the following:
Multiple US–Iran conflict scenarios carry materially different risks for global oil infrastructure, transit routes, and prices.
China’s crude oil imports hit a record-high 11.6 million barrels per day in 2025, as geopolitical tensions, low oil prices, and global oversupply spurred China to increase its oil stockpiles, a trend likely to continue in 2026.
The US intervention in Venezuela may jeopardize both the flow of discounted Venezuelan oil to China's teapot refineries and the role of Chinese oil companies in Venezuela’s upstream business.
Full report
Reports by Luisa Palacios & Catarina Vidotto Caricati • May 18, 2023