PETROCHINA Co, the nation's biggest oil company, reported yesterday that oil and natural gas output rose 4.3 percent in the first nine months of the year as demand increased.
Production climbed to the equivalent of 828.1 million barrels, Beijing-based PetroChina said. Oil output increased 0.9 percent, while gas production jumped 17 percent.
Third-quarter output reached the equivalent of 275.4 million barrels of oil.
PetroChina is managing output from the Daqing field, the nation's biggest and oldest, to extend its productive life as reserves dwindle. The company is expanding its search for oil and gas overseas to replace depleting domestic supplies and meet rising energy demand, spurred by an economy that expanded 11.9 percent in the second quarter.
"While global peers are sounding warnings of declining oil production in the second half of 2007, PetroChina continued to deliver meaningful growth on a large base," Gordon Kwan, head of China energy research at CLSA Ltd, told Bloomberg News. "Bullish third-quarter operating statistics could enlarge the scope of earnings upgrades."
Oil production rose to 632 million barrels in the first nine months and reached 212.3 million barrels in the third quarter. PetroChina sold crude at an average US$60.94 a barrel during the nine months, a 0.91 percent decrease from a year earlier.
Oil output from the company's overseas fields was 37.9 million barrels in the first nine months, and gas production from overseas was 33.2 billion cubic feet.
Natural gas output climbed to 1.176 trillion cubic feet from January through September. PetroChina produced 378.1 billion cubic feet of gas in the three months ended on September 30. The company sold the gas at US$2.55 per thousand cubic feet in the first nine months, up 4.1 percent from a year earlier.
The company processed 203.7 million barrels of oil into fuels at its refineries during the last quarter. In the nine months crude processing increased 5.2 percent to 611.4 million barrels.
Gasoline production in the first three quarters fell 0.9 percent to 16.1 million metric tons, with the realized price rising 4.04 percent to US$535.89 a ton. Output for the third quarter reached 5.434 million tons.