The majors' share fell from 61 percent to 56 percent. The share for other publicly traded producers decreased from 6 percent to 5 percent.
Most oil and gas producers are privately owned companies, which tend to be much smaller than publicly traded oil and gas producers. For example, in 1992, when the majors produced a per company average of 345,000 barrels per day (COE), the other publicly-traded oil and gas companies included in this report produced an average of 10,000 barrels per day, and the remaining oil and gas companies produced an average of only 300 barrels per day (see endnote 18). These small private producers are quite numerous, accounting for about 7,400 of the nearly 8,000 companies reporting oil and/or natural gas production in the United States in 1992 (see endnote 19). In the same year, 427 publicly traded corporations disclosed that Standard Industrial Code (SIC) 1311 (oil and gas extraction) was one of the industries in which they operate, of which 327 stated that SIC 1311 was their primary industry (see endnote 20).
The publicly traded producers annually disclose their oil and gas reserves, production, and exploration and development expenditures. The firm of Arthur Andersen and Company has compiled these disclosures for the 1981-1993 period. These compilations, together with other corporate financial disclosures, will be utilized throughout the remainder of this report. Since oil and gas producers are subject to the same market forces, regardless of ownership structure, it is reasonable to expect that findings based on data for publicly traded independent producers apply to the privately owned independent producers as well.
Companies in the Arthur Andersen and Company database were classified (for purposes of this report) as follows, based on the companies' disclosures of their primary and secondary SIC codes: "independent producers" (primary industry code SIC 13) and "other producers" (primary SIC other than SIC 13, but reporting oil and/or gas production). Other publicly traded oil and gas producers were further subdivided (based on primary SIC's) into refiners, pipelines/utilities, Canadian or other foreign-based, or diversified companies.
Among U.S. oil and gas producers, the independents have gained an increased role in the industry following the oil price collapse. The publicly traded independents' share of U.S. oil and gas production, on a net ownership basis, increased from 7 percent in 1985 to 8 percent in 1993 while the privately owned producers' share increased from 26 percent to 31 percent.
The majors' share fell from 61 percent to 56 percent. The share for other publicly traded producers decreased from 6 percent to 5 percent.
Apart from the majors, diversified companies showed the most retrenchment in U.S. oil and gas production following the oil price collapse (Table 3 and Figure 7). Pipelines and utilities also reduced their commitment to upstream production. Overall, refiners and Canadian-based producers showed little change in their role in U.S. oil and gas production.