Shell keeps the top spot as most valuable oil & gas brand with Aramco at its heels

Brand valuation consultancy Brand Finance has revealed its Oil & Gas 50 2023 ranking, covering – what it described as – the world’s top 50 most valuable and strongest oil and gas brands. According to this ranking, Shell remains the world’s most valuable oil and gas brand for the ninth consecutive year, however, Aramco is closing the gap.

Brand Finance explains that brand value is understood as the net economic benefit that a brand owner would achieve by licensing the brand in the open market while brand strength is the efficacy of a brand’s performance on intangible measures relative to its competitors.

The brand valuation consultancy explains that Shell has retained its position as the world’s most valuable oil and gas brand despite experiencing a 3 per cent brand value reduction, taking its brand value to $48.2 billion. This is the ninth consecutive year that the UK-headquartered oil and gas brand has held the top spot. However, Saudi Arabian oil and gas giant, Aramco, has reduced the gap at the top with a brand value up by 4 per cent to $45.2 billion.

Savio D’Souza, Valuation Director, Brand Finance, remarked: “The oil & gas industry had a record year in terms of profits and cash flow driven by the recovery from the pandemic and geopolitical uncertainty. Geopolitics and economic uncertainty is likely to play a big role in the year ahead too. The challenge for oil & gas brands will be to optimise their brand and business positioning for the global energy transition while balancing their responsibility to provide affordable energy to the world.”

Aside from calculating brand value, Brand Finance also determines the relative strength of brands through a balanced scorecard of metrics evaluating marketing investment, stakeholder equity, and business performance. The consultancy’s assessment of stakeholder equity – compliant with ISO 20671 – incorporates original market research data from over 150,000 respondents in 38 countries and across 31 sectors.

Furthermore, Brand Finance confirms that Petronas with brand value down by 7 per cent to $12.7 billion is again the strongest oil and gas brand, a title it has held since 2020. The company’s Brand Strength Index (BSI) score went up two points to 89 out of 100 in 2023, earning a corresponding AAA rating.

The high BSI score comes partly as a result of the Malaysian player’s commitment to the industry wide energy transition, as it looks to diversify its range of energy options and significantly improve its company-wide sustainability. Petronas has committed to allocating 20 per cent of its overall capital expenditure for decarbonisation projects and cleaner energy solutions from 2023 to 2026.

On the other hand, Qatargas – with a brand value up by 147 per cent to $3.1 billion – is the world’s fastest-growing oil and gas brand, as well as the fastest-growing brand across all sectors in the Middle East in 2023, based on Brand Finance’s research. Owned by QatarEnergy, Qatargas is one of the world’s leading gas-producing brands, as pointed out by the consultancy.

Moreover, Brand Finance claims that Qatargas has seen significant growth in 2023 due to the increase in global demand for its product following the embargo of Russian gas by many countries. The Qatari player also benefited from the FIFA Football World Cup, which took place in Qatar, for which Qatargas was an official sponsor, increasing its brand awareness outside of its home market and boosting its BSI score of 5 points to 71 out of 100, with a corresponding AA rating.

Meanwhile, Brand Finance also assesses the role that specific brand attributes play in driving overall brand value such as sustainability. The consultancy’s research identified Aramco as having the highest sustainability perceptions value – $4.5 billion – of any oil and gas brand in the ranking.

However, the firm’s position at the top of the sustainability perceptions value table is not an assessment of its overall sustainability performance, but rather indicates how much brand value the brand has tied up in sustainability perceptions.

Therefore, Brand Finance underlines that Aramco has the most value at risk in relation to sustainability. Additionally, the firm had a strong sustainability perceptions score of 5.2 out of 10, which it is taking positive steps to protect.