PetroChina's Q3 net profit leaps

 

Net profit surged to 4.69 billion yuan ($706 million), up 290 percent from a year earlier, as the company cut debt and interest expenses.

 

Revenues rose to 481.8 billion yuan, up 17 percent from the same period last year, PetroChina said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

 

The state giant's share price, however, has been hovering near the lowest since 2005, weighed down by still weak global oil prices while refining margins are under pressure from competition from independent refineries.

 

PetroChina's earnings could be lifted in the fourth quarter as it is expected to raise wholesale natural gas prices by 20 percent from mid-November just as the winter heating season starts in northern parts of the country, analysts said.

 

The gas price hike will offset a recent 15 percent cut in pipeline tariffs, part of a government policy push to reduce transmission cost and boost use of the cleaner fuel.

 

Crude production fell to 660 million barrels in the first three quarters of the year, down 5 percent year on year. Natural gas sales up were 4.5 percent year on year in the January to September period.