INTERACTIVE: Balancing Risk and Reward in Company Portfolios

Using our production-weighted oil and gas risk (PWOGR) tool as well as our proprietary Vantage database, in this report we compare the global integrated oil companies (GIOCs) with the “international” national oil companies (NOCs), contrasting risk with reward in company portfolios. 

Combining the historical and forecast production volumes by company in our E&P Portfolio with the country-specific Oil & Gas Risk rankings enables us to quantify above-ground risk in company portfolios. Utilizing this framework, we calculate PWOGR scores on a 1-10 basis, where 10= most resilient, 1= most risky. 

Among the GIOCs, Equinor has the most risk-resilient production portfolio, while Eni has the ‘riskiest’ production portfolio among the GIOCs. Nevertheless, since 2019, Eni has steadily strengthened its portfolio..Turning to the “international” NOCs, QatarEnergy currently has the most resilient production portfolio, while Ecopetrol scores worst in the peer group at present. Ecopetrol also experienced the worst erosion among the NOCs in the resilience of its portfolio since 2019.

In looking at the two peer groups together, there is a clear difference in the risk resiliency between the GIOCs and the international NOCs. The median GIOC PWOGR score in 2025 stands at 7.36, well above the 5.75 median NOC PWOGR score. 

Adding in the calculated after-tax net present value (NPV) per barrel of oil equivalent of remaining resources enables us to measure this risk exposure against the ‘reward’ that each company accrues. Our calculations show that Shell currently has the highest average NPV among GIOCs, while BP has the lowest. Among the international NOCs, CNOOC stands out from its peers, while PETRONAS has the lowest average portfolio NPV/boe.

Looking at all the companies together allows us to see which ones are performing better than their peers. Companies in the top right quadrant are getting the best value per unit of risk, while those in the bottom left quadrant are exposed to too much risk for too little reward. Companies in the bottom right are all getting better value but taking on excess risk, while those in the top left are arguably not taking on sufficient risk, given the limited rewards they are generating from their portfolios.

The PWOGR framework demonstrates that GIOCs as a group are more resilient against above-ground risks compared to the international NOCs, in large part because of an ongoing shift to concentrate oil and gas production in fewer, but generally safer countries. The NOCs, by contrast, generally have more of their hydrocarbon production concentrated at home, but they are increasingly generating new oil and gas from additional countries.

Check out the Upstream Company Peer Group Insights report for the full details.