OREANDA-NEWS. PetroChina Company Limited announced its results for the first three quarters of 2013. Despite facing a sluggish global economic recovery, the slowing down of China's economic growth and weak demand in the oil and petrochemical markets, the Company followed its development guideline of "quality, profitability and sustainability", coordinated both the domestic and the overseas businesses, actively responded to changes in the market, and enhanced the overall balance of production, processing, transportation, marketing, storage and trading and as a result, the Company maintained steady production and operations, delivered supplies to the oil and gas market in an efficient manner, and achieved stable growth in its operating results.

In the first three quarters of 2013, the Company recorded turnover of RMB1,682.784 billion, representing an increase of 5.3% as compared with the same period last year; net profit attributable to the shareholders of the Company amounted to approximately RMB95.3 billion, an increase of 9.6% as compared to the same period last year, with basic earnings per share of RMB0.52. The Company continued to maintain active, healthy and effective development of its businesses.

The Company made important progress in domestic oil and gas exploration and production and achieved a steady growth in output. In the first three quarters of 2013, the Company's crude oil output reached 698.0 million barrels, representing an increase of 2.2% as compared to the same period last year. The Company's output of marketable natural gas amounted to 2,048.0 billion cubic feet, representing an increase of 9.0% as compared to the same period last year.

Output of oil and natural gas equivalent was 1,039.4 million barrels, representing an increase of 4.3% as compared to the same period last year, of which, 101.4 million barrels were overseas output, representing an increase of 2.0% as compared to the same period last year. Due to the decrease in the selling price of crude oil and the increase in its cost, profit from operations in the exploration and production segment amounted to RMB147,010 million, representing a decrease of 10.0% as compared to the same period last year.

The Company, adhering to the principles of market-orientation and profitability, optimized its resource allocation and sought to reduce losses and increase profitability. The construction of the key refinery and chemicals projects progressed smoothly, with the quality upgrade of its refining and chemical oil products and structural adjustments implemented at an orderly pace. In the first three quarters of 2013, the Company processed 734.5 million barrels of crude oil, representing a decrease of 1.2% as compared to the same period last year.

The Company produced 66.758 million tons of gasoline, diesel and kerosene, a level similar to that in the same period last year. The refining and chemicals segment incurred a loss from operations of RMB20,004 million in the first three quarters of 2013, representing a decrease in the loss from operations of RMB17,394 million as compared to the same period last year. Of this, the refining operations incurred a loss from operations of RMB5,321 million, representing a decrease in loss from operations of RMB24,698 million as compared to the same period last year. Due to the prolonged weakness of the domestic petrochemicals market, the chemicals operations incurred a loss from operations of RMB14,683 million, representing an increase in loss from operations of RMB7,304 million as compared to the same period last year.

The Company adjusted its marketing strategies to increase sales and enhance profitability by focusing on quality and profitability. The quality of the international trading operations of the Company continued to improve, whilst its trade scale also continued to grow. In the first three quarters of 2013, the Company sold 119.422 million tons of gasoline, diesel and kerosene, representing an increase of 5.2% as compared to the same period last year. However, due to factors such as the sluggish recovery of the global economy and weak demand for refined products both domestically and overseas, profit from operations of the marketing segment amounted to RMB6,705 million in the first three quarters of 2013, representing a decrease of 43.1% as compared to the same period last year.

The Company coordinated and balanced the domestic and overseas resources and enhanced its potential for domestic production and supply for its natural gas business, strengthened the management of the demand side and pushed forward the development of new pipelines and high-profitable markets in a well-organized manner, thus ensuring profitability. Profit from operations of the natural gas and pipeline segment amounted to RMB23,438 million in the first three quarters of 2013, representing an increase of RMB22,553 million as compared to the same period last year. Among which, loss from sales of imported gas was RMB31,690 million.