PetroChina’s 2023 net income up 8.3% on strong fuel and gas sales
- 25 Mar 2024
PetroChina’s net profit rose 8.3 per cent last year off record levels in 2022, as strong growth in natural gas sales and its marketing segment offset lower realised oil prices.
PetroChina’s net profit amounted to 161.1 billion yuan($22.34 billion) in 2023, versus 148.7 billion in 2022, while revenue fell 7.0 per cent to 3,239 billion yuan ($449.07 billion), the firm said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Monday.
Operating profit for the natural gas segment more than tripled to 43.0 billion yuan from around 13.0 billion yuan, while operating profit in the marketing segment rose 66.7 per cent on the previous year.
The average realised price for crude oil fell by 16.8 per cent compared to 2022 levels.
The national energy giant produced 937.1 million barrels of crude oil last year, or 2.57 million barrels per day, up 3.4 per cent over the previous year (906.2 mln bbl). Natural gas output was up 5.5 per cent at 4,932.4 billion cubic feet (bcf).
Refinery crude throughput rose 15.3 per cent to 1,398.8 million barrels, or 3.83 million barrels per day, reversing the previous year’s 1 per cent decline due to a strong recovery in gasoline and aviation fuel demand as China dropped pandemic curbs.
PetroChina recorded a 17.3 per cent increase in domestic sales of gasoline, diesel and kerosene combined, with domestic kerosene sales surging by 82.1 per cent on 2022.
The group’s chemical new materials output increased 60.0 per cent on last year.
The refining segment “seized the favourable opportunity of market recovery” and “improved the proportion of featured refined products and high-end chemical products,” the statement said.
PetroChina forecasts this year’s crude oil output to fall by 3 per cent to 909.2 million barrels. Natural gas output is expected to increase by 4 per cent to 5,142.6 bcf.
It also aimed for a 0.3 per cent growth in refinery output this year.
An annual outlook released last month by a research arm of parent company CNPC showed China’s aviation fuel consumption is likely to expand 13.1 per cent this year on a surge in passenger travel, while diesel use may drop 1.8 per cent amid broader economic headwinds.
Capital spending is planned at 258 billion yuan ($35.78 billion) for 2024, which would be 6.3 per cent lower than the 275.3 billion spent last year.
While capital expenditure on the upstream segment is expected to fall, capex in the refining and marketing segments is forecast to increase significantly, by 177 per cent and 49.8 per cent respectively.
The group will “promote the refining and chemical business towards the middle and high-end of the industrial chain,” with extra spending ear-marked to for the group’s petrochemical subsidiaries in Jilin and Guangxi.
Higher spending in the marketing segment will be used to support the development of “integrated energy stations” offering EV charging and hydrogen fuel services, it added.
PetroChina Company Limited is a Chinese oil and gas company and is the listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), headquartered in Dongcheng District, Beijing.
The company is currently Asia’s largest oil and gas producer.
Traded in Hong Kong and New York, the mainland enterprise announced its plans to issue stock in Shanghai in November 2007, and subsequently entered the constituent of SSE 50 Index.
In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, PetroChina was ranked as the 32nd-largest public company in the world.
PetroChina was established as a joint stock company with limited liabilities under the Company Law of the People’s Republic of China (the PRC) on 5 November 1999, as part of the restructuring of CNPC.
In the restructuring, CNPC injected into PetroChina most of the assets and liabilities of CNPC relating to its exploration and production, refining and marketing, chemicals and natural gas businesses.
Because of Sinopec’s link to Sudan through parent company China Petrochemical Corporation, several institutional investors such as Harvard and Yale decided, in 2005, to divest from Sinopec.
Sudan divestment efforts have continued to be concentrated on PetroChina since then.
Fidelity Investments, after pressure from activist groups, also announced in a filing in the US that it had sold 91 per cent of its American Depositary Receipts in PetroChina in the first quarter of 2007.
