MOSCOW (MRC) -- PetroChina Co. has posted its lowest quarterly profit on record as weaker oil prices took their toll on earnings. The result missed some analysts’ estimates and its shares dropped, reported Bloomberg.
Net income at China’s biggest oil and gas producer fell 82% to 6.15 billion yuan (USD991 million) from 34.2 billion yuan a year ago, the company said in a statement Monday.
"We expect this to mark the low point for the year," Neil Beveridge, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, said in an e-mail. "As oil prices recover in 2015, so should earnings," he said, noting that the result was lower than the consensus forecast.
Beijing-based PetroChina joined Cnooc Ltd., China’s biggest offshore oil and gas explorer, in reporting a decline in earnings after Brent, the benchmark for half of the world’s crude trading, tumbled 42% over the past ten months. PetroChina’s profit was the lowest since 2007, when Bloomberg started compiling quarterly data on the company.
Its shares fell 5.1% to HKD10.10 as of 9:48 a.m. in Hong Kong, compared with a 0.3% decline in the city’s benchmark Hang Seng Index.
Sales fell 22% to 410.3 billion yuan while the average realized crude price dropped 51% to USD48.87 a barrel from a year ago, according to the statement. Oil and gas output rose 4.9% to 381.2 million barrels of oil equivalent in the quarter.
PetroChina’s 2015 profit may drop 47% to 56.6 billion yuan, according to the mean estimate of 27 analysts compiled by Bloomberg.
Sinopec, which saw its no. 2 official resign on Monday as part of the government’s escalating crackdown on corruption in the oil sector, is expected to report a 1.88 billion yuan loss when it reports first-quarter earnings on Wednesday, according to the average estimate of four analysts compiled by Bloomberg.
As MRC informed earlier, on 9 April 2015, PetroChina Co. passed Exxon Mobil Corp. as the biggest energy company by market value for the first time since 2010. Exxon’s capitalization was USD352.6 billion compared with PetroChina’s USD352.8 billion as of 1:36 p.m. on Thursday, 9 April, in Shanghai. The Chinese company’s A shares surged about 61 percent the past year, versus Exxon’s 14 percent drop. PetroChina was larger by value most recently at the close of trading on June 25, 2010.
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.
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