New Delhi: The earnings of Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia's giant oil company, have long been a matter of guesswork because they were kept secret. On Monday, Moody's Investors Service, the credit rating agency, lifted the veil, revealing that the company made $111.1 billion last year, meaning it was probably by far the world's most profitable company.

It handily beats out Apple ($59.5 billion in net income in 2018) and Alphabet, the parent company of Google ($30.7 billion), and runs laps around other oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell ($23.9 billion) and Exxon Mobil ($20.8 billion).

Moody's attributed Aramco's profitability in part to economies of scale stemming from enormous production volumes extracted from oil and gas assets of unmatched size. Aramco has some of the world's largest oilfields, leading to very low costs.

"Aramco's scale of production in combination with its vast hydrocarbon resources is a very strong competitive advantage," Moody's analysts wrote. Aramco produced 13.6 million barrels per day in 2018 on average, more than three times the 3.8 million barrels per day reported by Exxon Mobil, according to the report. Overall, its revenue was about $360 billion.

Aramco is seeking a credit rating in order to raise money for its purchase of a 70% stake in Saudi Arabian Basic Industries, a Saudi petrochemical company also known as Sabic, for about $69 billion. Analysts said the Saudi government appeared to have chosen the Sabic transaction as a way for Aramco to raise money for investments in economic diversification; a much-anticipated initial public offering of Aramco, which also would have raised money for investments, has been postponed.

Moody's wrote that Aramco was "conservatively managed" with "very low debt levels." The agency rated the company A1.