Global 500: The top 25

Wal-Mart retakes the lead on Fortune's annual list of the world's biggest companies. See which other outfits top our list.

Royal Dutch Shell
3. Royal Dutch Shell
Global 500 rank: 3 (Previous rank: 3)
2006 Revenues (millions): $318,845
Headquarters: The Hague
Country: Netherlands
Get quote: RDSA

Europe's biggest company is also a fossil-fuel giant. Shell's particular strength is in natural gas; its soaring prices helped overall revenues grow 3.9% last year. Although it's the second most-profitable company in the world, with earnings of $25.4 billion, its profits grew only 0.5% last year because of slowdowns at its Nigerian operations and an increase in unplanned downtime at the company's U.S. refineries.

See more Global 500 data for Royal Dutch Shell

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Full list Old-economy outfits top Fortune's annual Global 500 list, thanks to rising oil prices and a slew of mergers that drove record profits. (more)
Most profitable Exxon Mobil leads our list of top earners this year. Which other companies are among the most profitable on the planet? (more)
Money losers Which automaker lost a whopping $12.6 billion last year? And just how far into the red are stalwarts like Goodyear and Tyson Foods? (more)

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.