Asia's largest oil and gas producer PetroChina reported on Thursday a 3.9 per cent year-on-year decline in third-quarter net profit due to lower oil prices as it maintained steady crude production and expanded natural gas output.
Net profit fell to 42.29 billion yuan ($5.94 billion), the company said in a stock filing, while revenue rose 2.3 per cent to 719.16 billion yuan.
Domestic peer offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC reported on Thursday a 12 per cent fall in quarterly earnings, while refining giant Sinopec Corporation posted on Wednesday flat net income for the same period.
In the first nine months of this year, PetroChina produced 714.3 million barrels of oil, 0.8 per cent higher year-on-year, including 591.3 million barrels, or 82.8 per cent, produced domestically.
Natural gas output expanded 4.6 per cent year-on-year to 3,977.2 billion cubic feet during the nine months, 97 per cent of which was produced in China.
Crude oil processing at PetroChina, which is also China's second-largest refiner after Sinopec, was up 0.4 per cent at 1,040.6 million barrels, or 3.81 million barrels per day during the nine-month period.
Sales of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel rose 0.8 per cent year-on-year to 120.9 million tonnes, reversing a 4.6 per cent fall in the same period in 2024. Of that, domestic sales stood flat at 89.64 million tonnes.
Aviation fuel expanded 13.2 per cent and diesel was up 0.3 per cent. Gasoline sales, however, fell 2.6 per cent owing to competition from electric vehicles.
The company said it continued to strengthen exploration and development with a focus on increasing reserves and production, while pushing ahead with upgrading its refining and chemicals business.
In renewables, it generated 5.79 billion kilowatt hours of electricity from wind and solar in the January-September period, up 72 per cent year on year.
Its natural gas sales in the first three quarters rose 4.2 per cent to 218.5 billion cubic meters (bcm), including 171 bcm sold domestically.
The nine-month capital spending totalled 177.2 billion yuan, versus 180.2 billion yuan a year earlier.
PetroChina's Hong Kong-listed shares have risen 30.4 per cent year-to-date, slightly lagging a 31 per cent rise in the Hang Seng index.
(Reporting by Sam Li and Chen Aizhu; Editing by Susan Fenton)
