关键词: ROCE, 跨国石油公司, 结构指标, 相关分析法

Abstract: This article briefs about economic meaning of Return on Capital Employed (ROCE). Five multinational oil companies, such as Exxon-Mobil, BP, Chevron, Shell and Total, are selected as the targets for study. The article analyzes the index trend of multinational oil companies in the areas of ROCE, structures of upstream and downstream sectors, oil and gas structure, local and overseas production structure. It is found that the upstream and downstream structural changes of oil companies are characterized with constant adjustment in part but stability in general. The proportion of natural gas to the total oil and gas productionkeeps rising while overseas oil and gas production is on the annual rise. Based on the understanding of their internal development and structural adjustment, the article adopts the relative analytical methods to get insight into the index changes in ROCE and structure of above-mentioned companies and focus on their structural conversion effects. The analytical results indicate that the return of investment in upstream business is higher than that in downstream business for the oil companies while the return of investment in crude oil business is higher than natural gas business. Even under the situation of frequent risks, overseas oil and gas business is still on the increase. It also summarizes the strategic driving factors of structural adjustment of multinational oil companies, including the similarity and singularity of structural adjustment paths in order to provide some experiences for the domestic oil companies under internationalization process.

Key words: ROCE, multinational oil companies, structural indexes, relativeanalytical methods, structural adjustment