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Chinese Oil Firm Sinopec Reports First-Half Profit of 2.18bn Dollars

Posted on: Monday, 29 August 2005, 12:00 CDT

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

Beijing, 29 August: The China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), China's largest oil refiner, announced Monday [29 August] a net profit of 18.04bn yuan (2.18bn US dollars) in the first half of 2005, a growth of 19.98 per cent year on year.

From January to June, Sinopec saw its revenue from principal operations totalling 359.24bn yuan (43.39bn US dollars), an increase of 35.20 per cent over the first half of 2004.

Sinopec produced crude oil of 36.69m barrels and natural gas of 104.8bn cubic feet in the first half this year, an increase of 0.62 per cent and 4.74 per cent, respectively, year on year.

The average crude price was 39.40 US dollars per barrel, up by 33.0 per cent year on year. The natural gas price was 2.26 US dollars per thousand cubic feet, up by 8.70 per cent over a year ago.

The Exploration and Production Segment of Sinopec realized operational returns of 17.80bn yuan (2.15bn US dollars) in the first half of 2005, a year-on-year growth of 69.15 per cent.

From January to June, Sinopec processed 68.08m tons of crude oil, growing by 4.77 per cent year on year. Throughput of sour crude, of higher quality and lower procurement cost, increased by 25.99 over a year ago. The output of gasoline, diesel oil and kerosene reached 41.02m tons, up 4.72 per cent year on year.

Due to the widening price gap between domestic and overseas refined oil products, Sinopec's refining segment recorded a loss of 1.30bn yuan (157m US dollars) in the first half of 2005.

Sinopec saw its total domestic sales of refined products reach 50.77m tons, an increase of 11.61 per cent compared to the same period last year. The proportion of retail and direct sales to the total domestic sales increased to 78.69 per cent from 76.24 per cent a year ago.

Marketing and Distribution operations realized an income of 6.64bn yuan (802m US dollars), a year-on-year decrease of 22.48 per cent.

In the first half of 2005, Sinopec saw the output of ethylene reach 2.434m tons, an increase of 16.96 per cent over the same period last year. The production of other major chemical products, such as synthetic resin, synthetic rubber and monomers and polymers for synthetic fibre, also increased.

On 10 May, 2005, a chemical sales subsidiary of Sinopec was established, an important step in the company's reform of its chemical marketing systems.

The chemical segment realized an operating profit of 10.82bn yuan (1.31bn US dollars), 80.10 per cent up year on year.

Sinopec's newly built production capacity of crude oil and natural gas was 2.712m tons and 900m cu.m. per year, respectively.

Looking to the second half of 2005, Sinopec plans to produce 140.2m barrels of crude oil and 109bn cubic feet of natural gas, to process 72m tons of crude oil, to increase its sales volume of refined oil products to 52m tons and to produce 2.75m tons of ethylene.

Sinopec Corp. is the first Chinese company listed in Hong Kong, New York, London and Shanghai simultaneously. As an integrated energy and chemical company with upstream, midstream and downstream operations, It is also the largest listed company in China, based on 2004 turnover.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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