MOSCOW (MRC) -- China Petroleum & Chemical Corp reported a 39.15 billion yuan (USD6.05 bn) net profit for the first six months of 2021 on the back of renewed fuel demand and a rebound in oil prices amid a recovery from the impact of COVID-19, said Reuters.
Asia's biggest oil refiner, known as Sinopec, posted a 23 billion yuan loss during January-June last year as the coronavirus pandemic walloped fuel demand and knocked oil prices. The 2021 interim profit compares with a 31.338 billion yuan profit in the same period in 2019.
Revenue in the first six months rose 22.1% from last year's low base to 1.26 trillion yuan, following a recovery in global oil prices and robust demand for fuel and petrochemical products.
During the period, Sinopec processed a total of 126.11 million tonnes crude oil, up 13.7% on a year earlier, with gasoline output increasing by 20.8% as more people drove as China recovered from the COVID-19 shock.
As per MRC, Sinopec, the world's petrochemical major, has launched the first phase of the Gulei refining complex in Zhangzhou city in China’s southeastern Fujian province. The refining complex, a 50:50 joint venture between Sinopec’s Fujian Petrochemical Company Ltd and Taiwan Xuteng Investment Company Ltd, invested 27.8 billion yuan (USD4.28 billion) in the first phase.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) is a super-large petroleum and petrochemical enterprise group established in July 1998 on the basis of the former China Petrochemical Corporation. Sinopec Group's key business activities include the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, petrochemicals and other chemical products, oil refining.
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