A quick look at the Forbes list of the top 25 oil companies indicates that it is business as usual: Saudi Aramco continued its domination of the first ranking oil company in the world with its mammoth daily production of 12.5 million barrels per day (bpd).
Conventional majors such as Exxon/Mobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell are there as well.
Moreover, national oil companies also continue to be visible. They include Russia's gas major Gazprom, National Iranian Oil Co and state-owned firms from Mexico, Kuwait, Qatar and Nigeria. In addition, there are emerging companies from China such as PetroChina and Sinopec. Petrochina occupies the fifth rank and Sinopec is in the 23rd position.
And here comes the creeping difference.
The Forbes list was compiled based on last year's figures. This year’s performance is pointing to a little different situation.
According to this year's first quarter results of PetroChina, it produced 2.4 million per day, surpassing that of Exxon/Mobil by 100,000 bpd.
PetroChina like Exxon/Mobil is a publicly-traded oil company though the Chinese government controls it. And more significantly, it is only 13 years old, against more than one century of history for Exxon.
In the past few years, China moved to occupy the world's second largest economy and the world's second biggest energy consumer.
It is on its way to occupy the world's largest economy as early as 2020 if prediction by PriceWaterhouse comes true.
To meet its growing energy demand and continue its economic growth, China needs to secure its oil and gas supplies. And to do that it opted for the option of takeovers and acquisition, which will allow it secure proven reserves immediately instead of waiting years for prospecting activities to fruit.
Given this interest, which is driven by what could be termed resource nationalism, where commercial considerations are eclipsed in favor of more strategic ones.
One result is that new oil majors backed by governments are more willing to pay higher prices that may not be warranted by market calculations.
The new bid by the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) to buy out Canadian firm Nexen is a good point in the case.
CNOOC is offering $ 15.1 billion, which amounts to 61 percent premium over current market price.
Last year the same CNOOC paid $ 2.1 billion for another Canadian firm Opti, which carried a value of $ 11 a barrel in proven reserves and more important it gives China a foothold in Canada's burgeoning oil sands industry.
Clearly, this decade is going to be dominated by Asians and for that matter Chinese takeover, unlike the first decade when the takeover market was dominated by the conventional majors when Exxon took over Mobil, BP bought out Amoco and Arco, while Chevron went retaking Texaco, and Total backed its presence with the takeover of both Elf and Fina. In a nutshell, western majors were buying western majors.
China's drive is targeting potential reserves worldwide, but with a clear trend on mature, developed markets like Canada. That seems natural given the growing tension in the Middle East where supplies from Iraq and Iraq for example could be subjected to cut given the political and security tensions.
What happened in Sudan is a good example. Before the separation of South Sudan into an independent country a year ago, China used to get some 6 percent of its oil imports from Sudan. Following the separation and the row between the two Sudans on a host of issues including transit fees, South Sudan decided last January to shut down its oil production and China has to look for another source of supply to compensate for that gap.
That is why the CNOOC-Nexen bid is significant in many ways. It is the biggest bid so far to acquire a working company with ready reserves.
Moreover, if it is approved, it will break new grounds in China's presence in mature markets like North America, North Sea and Gulf of Mexico.
But apparently the same resource nationalism that is pushing China to offer higher bid to acquire ready proven reserves, mature economies are behaving the same way.
Already some US congressmen are raising their concern on the potential take over and are urging Obama administration to do something about it. After all 10 percent of Nexen assets are in the US market.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a conservative warned that the prospecting deal should be a net benefit to the country and that his government will make the necessary scrutiny to ensure that is happening.
The row brings to mind the drama that took place against CNOOC's bid to take over Unocal back in 2005, which was eventually awarded to Chevron.
The issue then became a political one for the Americans, though they put it into a commercial framework calling on China to open its market before American and foreign companies as well.
