It's not as though you need to be told that petroleum is king. After all, filling your car or truck is testament enough that the big oil companies are enjoying record revenues and profits, thus putting them on the throne, complete with cape and scepter.

But to drive the point home, 15 companies on IndustryWeek's fourth annual list of the 50 best U.S. manufacturers fall under the petroleum and coal products industry.

And of the $1.27 trillion in revenue for all 50 companies on the list, petroleum and coal companies contributed $986 billion -- or 77% of the total revenue. The leader? Exxon Mobil Corp., with 2005 revenues of $363 billion, contributes 28% to total revenues and nearly 40% to the petroleum and coal products revenues.

IW 50 Tables IW 50 Best U.S. Manufacturers Performance In 2005 33 Industry Leaders

With fears of supply disruption, increased demand in China and India and a spike in crude oil prices, it isn't hard to figure out why petroleum rules.

But for hard numbers, IndustryWeek's list considered financial measures that pertain to operational efficiency and market success. We selected this year's top performers by comparing financial performance during the past three years (2003 to 2005) in revenue growth, return on equity (ROE) and profit margin.

In addition to the market metrics, manufacturing specific metrics were chosen to address the capital/asset intensive nature of manufacturing. These include asset turnover, inventory turnover and return on assets (ROA).

See Also... IW 50 Best Manufacturers -- Methodology The 2006 IW 50 Best Manufacturing Companies

The six variables are weighted, with the most recent year contributing 50% of the calculation in each area. The IW 50 is culled from the IW U.S. 500 list, the largest publicly traded manufacturing companies in the United States.

So how did the other industries on the IW 50 perform? In terms of revenue, the chemicals industry -- led by Procter & Gamble Co.'s $56.7 billion 2005 revenues -- contributed $86.7 billion (6.8%) to the total revenue generated by all 50 companies on the list. Following chemicals, computers and other electronics added $61.4 billion (4.8%). Dell Inc. led the pack with $55.9 billion in revenue.

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