MOSCOW (MRC) -- Oil giant Sinopec has announced that its net profits plummeted 84.6% year on year in the first three months (Q1) of 2015, reported Xinhua.
Net profits during Q1 stood at 2.17 billion yuan (USD354.58 million), while its business revenues on oil refining pared 3.36 billion yuan, China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. said.
Sinopec attributed the slump to plunging oil prices in the global market.
The refiner produced 118 million barrels of oil and gas equivalent (boe) in Q1, down 1% from a year ago. Of the total, crude oil output decreased 2%, while natural gas output added 2.1% year on year.
Recently, top Asian refiner Sinopec has denied reported plans of a merger with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) or China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). It was reported earlier that the Chinese government was considering a merger of its state-owned oil and gas companies to cut costs and streamline operations.
We remind that, as MRC informed before, Sinopec Zhenhai shut down a high density polyethylene (HDPE)/linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) swing plant for maintenance turnaround in April 2015. It is expected to remain off-stream for around two months. Located at Ningbo in China, the plant has a production capacity of 450,000 mt/year.
Sinopec Corp. is one of the largest scale integrated energy and chemical companies with upstream, midstream and downstream operations. Its refining and ethylene capacity ranks No.2 and No.4 globally. The Company has 30,000 sales and distribution networks of oil products and chemical products, its service stations are now ranked third largest in the world.
MRC