Chinese Oil Corporation Report 10 Per Cent Profit Growth

Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

Beijing, 28 October: China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) reported Friday [28 October] a net profit growth of 10.12 per cent despite an operating loss in the refining sector of 7.926bn yuan (979m US dollars) in the first three quarters.

Sinopec saw its income from principal operations for the first three quarters of 2005 reach 576.99bn yuan (71.2bn US dollars), up 38.14 per cent, and net profit total of 26.48bn yuan (3.27bn US dollars), up 10.12 per cent.

Income from the principal operations of Sinopec for the third quarter totalled 217.74bn yuan (26.9bn US dollars), and net profit totalled 8.43bn yuan (1.04bn US dollars).

During the first three quarters, the crude oil production volume of Sinopec reached 29,188,700 tons, a slight increase of 1.34 per cent over the same period last year. Natural gas production reached 4.53bn cubic meters, rising by 5.08 per cent over last year.

The average crude price realized by Sinopec for the first three quarters was 43.33 US dollars per barrel, which was 36.99 per cent higher than the same period last year. The realized natural gas price was 2.27 US dollars per thousand cubic feet, up 9.66 per cent from a year ago.

The earning before interest and taxes (EBIT) from the exploration and production segment surged 82.63 per cent to 31.84bn yuan (3.93bn US dollars) during this period.

Sinopec refined 104.07m tons [tonnes] of crude oil in the first three quarters, up 5.47 per cent over the same period of 2004. And the production volume of light chemical feedstock increased by 19.06 per cent compared to the same period of last year.

Sinopec saw its total domestic distribution of refined products reach 77.50m tons, an increase of 10.42 per cent over last year. Retail sales totalled 46.18m tons, which was an increase of 19.74 per cent from last year.

Its total distribution volume during the period reached 15.42m tons, rising by 2.66 per cent over the same period last year. The proportion of retail and distribution sales to total sales was 79.50 per cent.

Due to the strict measures keeping domestic refined oil prices at a low level of the government, Sinopec saw its EBIT in the marketing and distribution segment in the first three quarters decrease 26.84 per cent to 9.38bn yuan (1.16bn US dollars).

Sinopec produced 3.85m tons of ethylene in the first three quarters, an increase of 28.45 per cent over the same period of last year, while the production volume of synthetic resin reached 5.55m tons, up 23.14 per cent from last year.

The chemical segment reported an EBIT of 14.65bn yuan (1.8bn US dollars), a 25.84 per cent increase over the same period of last year.

Sinopec’s capital expenditure in the first three quarters was 36.48bn yuan (4.5bn US dollars).

The expenditure for the exploration and production segment was 15.01bn yuan (1.85bn US dollars). The newly added production capacity of crude oil totalled 2.98m tons per year, and natural gas, 570m cubic meters per year.

Sinopec, China’s largest oil refinery, is an integrated energy and chemical company. It is the first Chinese company to be listed in Hong Kong, New York, London and Shanghai.