The best-known oil companies are powerful groups, with a very high turnover, placing them among the leading world companies. They are the majors, large international public companies, and the national companies, over 50%, and very often 100%, state-controlled. There are also many independent companies of average or small size. The most important among them are permanently at the mercy of being taken over by one of the majors as part of the tendency towards mergers that has been prevalent in the petroleum sector for the last 20 years.
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