PETROCHINA Co shares have further to rise, emerging-markets investor Mark Mobius said, a day after US billionaire Warren Buffett disclosed that he's cut his stake in China's biggest oil producer by 72 percent, Bloomberg News said.
"These oil companies still have a way to go," said Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management Ltd, owner of 5.1 percent of PetroChina's Hong Kong stock. "We've been maintaining the weighting we have in energy because we feel these oil companies are going to continue to benefit from high oil prices."
PetroChina has surged more than 10-fold since its 2001 initial public offering, including a 5.9-percent gain yesterday, as producers failed to keep pace with soaring oil demand in Asia's fastest-growing market. The company has leapfrogged rivals including BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc as China's fuel demand doubled over the past decade.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc, based in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday disclosed a seventh sale of the Hong Kong-traded stock, paring its stake to 3.1 percent from 11 percent in May. The world's second-biggest publicly traded oil company has climbed 23 percent since Buffett first revealed sales on July 12.