MOSCOW (MRC) -- China’s leading oil and gas producer PetroChina posted a 15% rise in its second-quarter profit, matching estimates, partly due to higher upstream earnings and improved refining margins, said Upstreamonline.
Net profit rose to 33.9 billion yuan (USD5.5 billion) in the period from 29.5 billion yuan a year earlier, according to Reuters calculations based on PetroChina's first-half results released on Thursday.
That compares with an average forecast of 33.2 billion yuan by six analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.
PetroChina said in March that it would cut capital spending for the second consecutive year in 2014 as it sought to boost shareholder returns in the midst of a massive corruption probe.
It has been selling down its pipeline assets to focus more on exploration and production.
As MRC wrote before, PetroChina plans to spend more than 10 billion yuan (USD1.6 billion) on shale gas this year. PetroChina's decision to triple its shale gas spending from expenditures on the unconventional fuel over the past few years comes just months after Sinopec lifted hopes that China is near a breakthrough by announcing a commercial find.
PetroChina Company Limited, is a Chinese oil and gas company and is the listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation, headquartered in Dongcheng District, Beijing. It is China's biggest oil producer.
MRC