National Iranian Oil Company, world’s 2nd largest oil company: PIW

An international energy research magazine has ranked the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) as the world’s second largest oil firm.

In a new report by Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (PIW), the NIOC was ranked the world’s second biggest oil company after Saudi Arabia’s Aramco in terms of the extent of operations as well as oil and gas reserves and products.

The PIW report which examines world’s 50 top oil and gas companies in 2011 fiscal year, ranked China’s CNPC, UK’s British Petroleum, Russia’s Gazprom and Norway’s Statoil after the NIOC.

Iran holds the world’s third-largest proven oil reserves and the second-largest natural gas reserves.

The country’s total in-place oil reserves have been estimated at more than 560 billion barrels, with about 140 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Moreover, heavy and extra-heavy varieties of crude oil account for roughly 70-100 billion barrels of the total reserves.