Who are the World’s Highest Risk Oil Producers?

Evaluate Energy has cut through the cacophony of different rating agencies’ (Note 1) sovereign and country rating risk rating systems to present their data in a single number. The resulting consensus country risk rating is shown below for the world’s top crude oil producers. Iran, Iraq, Libya and Venezuela are bunched together at the high-risk end of the range while Nigeria and Angola are also considered relatively high risk. Perhaps reassuringly, the bulk of the world’s top 20 oil producers are considered to have relatively low country risk. This includes some key Middle-East producers like Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait. Less surprisingly, the US, Canada, Norway and the UK are also considered very low risk. The size of each bubble represents crude production in 2012.

Both Iran and Venezuela are considered to be considerably more high risk today than they were in the year 2000, according to the rating agencies. But, remarkably, ratings of virtually all of the other top 20 oil producers have improved significantly, especially those for Saudi Arabia, Russia, Brazil and Nigeria. Others, such as Libya, remain unchanged in terms of its high country risk rating.

Top 20 Oil Producing Countries’ Consensus Risk Rating (Source: Evaluate Energy)

This report was completed using Evaluate Energy‘s Global database, which provides oil and gas industry metrics and key performance and economic indicators for countries worldwide. Evaluate Energy provides efficient data solutions for oil and gas company analysis. In addition to the Global database, Evaluate Energy also provides 20+ years of historical financial and operating data for the world’s biggest oil & gas companies, extensive M&A and Assets databases, and a new shale and unconventionals offering for its clients.

Notes

1. Evaluate Energy’s country risk rating is calculated as a simple average from the ratings of Fitch, Moody’s, S&P, OECD and Institutional Investor. Ratings of each agency are converted to a single number based on a transparent methodology to arrive at Evaluate Energy’s consensus country rating.

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