MOSCOW (MRC) -- PetroChina Co Ltd, the country's largest oil and gas producer, has reported its first ever quarterly loss as oil prices touched near 13-year lows, and forecast continued volatility in the market, as per Reuters.
Faced with the worst downturn in the oil sector in at least three decades, state-run PetroChina posted a net loss in the first three months 2016 of 13.79 billion yuan (USD2.13 billion), compared with a profit of 6.15 billion yuan a year earlier.
In the first quarter of 2016, the average realized price for crude oil of the group was USD27.27 per barrel, of which the domestic realized price was USD26.55 per barrel, representing a drop of 44.2 percent from the same period a year earlier.
The company expects that for the rest of the year the supply and demand fundamentals will remain loose. "International oil prices will widely fluctuate at a low level," the company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
A prolonged fall in oil prices has weighed on the industry, with U.S. giant Exxon Mobil this week losing its top credit rating from Standard & Poor's for the first time in almost 70 years and British oil company BP reporting an 80 percent drop in first-quarter profits.
PetroChina expects total crude output this year of 924.7 million barrels.
As MRC reported earlier, in February 2016, Chinese oil giant PetroChina Co. said it expects little rebound in global oil prices this year as jockeying for position among top oil producers intensifies.
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