Energy and natural resources
National oil company (NOC)
An oil and gas company owned or controlled by a government.
Last reviewedWhat does National oil company (NOC) mean?
A national oil company is owned or controlled by the state and often holds the rights to the country's oil and gas. Examples include Saudi Aramco, ADNOC in Abu Dhabi, QatarEnergy, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, ONGC in India and Petrobras in Brazil, which is state-controlled and publicly listed. NOCs hold most of the world's oil reserves. They pursue commercial goals, such as profit and growth, alongside national ones, such as funding the budget, creating local jobs and supplying cheap domestic fuel. Example: if a state owns 98 percent of its NOC and the NOC pays a 20 billion dividend, 19.6 billion goes to the government, on top of royalties and taxes. International oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies often partner with NOCs.
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Related terms
- Fiscal breakeven oil priceThe oil price a government needs to balance its budget.
- Production sharing contract (PSC)A deal in which an oil company pays to find and produce oil and is repaid with a share of the output.
- Sovereign wealth fund (SWF)A state-owned investment fund, often built from oil revenues or reserves.
- OPEC+A group of oil-producing countries, OPEC members plus other producers, that coordinate production targets.
- Barrel of oil equivalent (boe)A unit that converts gas into barrels of oil by energy content, so oil and gas can be added together.
- Lifting costThe cost of producing oil or gas from wells that already exist, per barrel.
- Full-cycle breakevenThe oil price a project needs to cover all its costs, including building it, and earn its required return.
- Crack spread (refining margin)The gap between the price of crude oil and the prices of the fuels made from it.