PetroChina profit down 77% in Q3

As US and European producers posted declining Q3 profits, China’s biggest oil and gas producer announced that its year-on-year profits had fallen some 76.9% in a statement on Friday.

The net income for the three months ending in September 2016 was CNY 1.2 billion (USD 177 million), while Bloomberg calculations suggested that its operating budget had incurred an E&P loss of some CNY 1.5 billion (USD 221 million).

PetroChina’s announcement came a day after competitor Sinopec announced a Q3 profit of CNY 10.2 billion (USD 1.5 billion), some six times greater than in 2015, as gains in midstream and downstream helped offset losses in upstream.

PetroChina’s net income for the first nine months of the year was down about 94 percent to CNY 1.73 billion (USD 255 million). China’s total crude production fell some 6.1% in the first nine months of the year — 9.8% in September alone — though analysts say low oil prices, which triggered the crisis, present an opportunity to optimise operations as well as a challenge.

Despite the disappointing figures, PetroChina also sounded a positive note in a press release posted on its site Friday.

“Despite a challenging operating environment, the Company recorded a number of achievements in oil and gas exploration, maintained relatively high profitability for its overseas output, and made steady progress on key projects in the first three quarters of 2016,” it said.