The main challengers to US economic power—Brazil, Russia, India and China—have overtaken the United States in dominating the global energy industry, according to a new study by Goldman Sachs.

The rising power of the four countries—the new economic tigers nicknamed the BRICs—is already evident in the metals and mining sector and is starting to be felt in insurance and consumer-related industries, said Anthony Ling, a managing director at the investment bank.

“For any company operating on a global scale, the world is changing more rapidly, more challenging than ever before — truly globalising,” he said, and one of the significant changes is “the rise of BRIC economies.”

At the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, 55 per cent of the 20 largest companies in the energy industry by market capitalisation were American, and 45 per cent European, according to the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. study. But in 2007, 35 per cent of the 20 largest energy companies are from BRIC countries, about 35 per cent are European, and about 30 per cent American, the study said. “The US is now lagging with the smallest percentage number of energy companies worldwide,” Ling said.

“If you think about the global resource industry typically being a leader in terms of global trends, we’re starting to see this replicated in the mining industry, where 20 percent of the top 20 companies are now from BRIC countries,” he said. “We believe this sort of pattern will be repeated industry by industry.”

It is already evident in the insurance business, where BRICs account for about 10 per cent of the top 20 companies, and in the global beverage industry, where the new economic powers are just starting to show with about 5 per cent.