China's offshore oil and gas firm CNOOC reported on Thursday a 57-percent jump in its consolidated net profit for the first half of 2018, booking the best half-year profit since the first half of 2015.
CNOOC Limited, the listed unit of state-held China National Offshore Oil Corporation, saw its consolidated net profit jump by 56.8 percent on the year to US$3.71 billion (25.48 billion yuan) in H1 2018, boosted by increased gas sales and higher oil prices compared to last year.
CNOOC's oil and gas sales revenue rose by 20.5 percent annually to US$13.14 billion (90.31 billion yuan).
CNOOC's net production for the first half this year came in at 238.1 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe), only 0.1 percent higher than the production for the first half of 2017. Natural gas production rose by 11 percent, CNOOC said. However, crude oil production in China decreased to 128 million boe from 134 million boe, due to maintenance of two drilling ships and declining production at the ageing Bohai field, Reuters quoted a company official as saying at the earnings press conference.
"Looking forward to the second half of the year, the external environment is still complicated and volatile, with many uncertainties ahead. The Company will continue to maintain its confidence and make solid progress to achieve its major production and operation targets for the year," CNOOC chairman Yang Hua said in the company earnings release.
Last month, another major Chinese company, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation, commonly known as Sinopec, said that it expects its net profit for the first half of 2018 to have jumped by around 50 percent on the year, on the back of higher oil prices. Sinopec's board meets to discuss and approve H1 results on Friday, August 24.
At the beginning of this month, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) said that its H1 overseas oil and gas production increased 7.3 percent annually, and profit from this division was up "substantially."
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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