PetroChina Company Limited, one of China's major onshore oil producer, said it raked in a net profit of 142.2 billion yuan (about US$17.8 billion) in 2006, a hike of 6.6 percent over the previous year.

 

The total turnover of PetroChina in 2006 reached 688.98 billion yuan, up 24.8 percent year on year.

 

The increase in profit is mainly contributed by the exploration and production sectors, which earned 219.86 billion yuan last year, a rise of 5.7 percent over the year of 2005, as the refining and sale sectors reported 29.16 billion yuan of losses in business earnings.

 

PetroChina produced a new record of 831 million barrels of crude oil in 2006, up 0.9 percent year-on-year, and also 1.372 trillion square meters of natural gas for sale, a year-on-year increase of 22.5 percent with good momentum for growth.

 

In the meantime, the company reported 56.73 million barrels of oil and gas production for overseas markets in 2006, up 4.2 percent year on year.

 

(Xinhua News Agency March 20, 2007)