Young dragons: who are China’s new upstream players?

China's upstream industry has traditionally been dominated by the NOCs, but with market-oriented reforms and a greater focus on the private sector, new players are emerging. Some of these new companies - alongside a growing class of non-upstream players - have created a new tier of international Chinese buyers. This group of buyers have executed more international M&A deals than the big three NOCs since 2014 and they have spent US$22.7 billion, across over 60 international upstream deals since 2006. These are two separate but related trends. We've identified a total of 74 Chinese companies that can be divided into two categories: around 50 new domestic entrants and over 30 new international buyers.