SINGAPORE, Oct 30 — PetroChina Co, Asia’s largest oil and gas producer, reported a sharp fall in third-quarter profit today, dragged down by weaker global energy prices and slowing growth in its domestic gas market.

Net profit for the July to September quarter was 8.83 billion yuan (US$1.25 billion), down 58.4 per cent compared with the same period a year ago and the weakest quarterly results this year, according to a company filing with Hong Kong stock exchange.

For the first nine months of 2019, net income fell 23.4 per cent from a year earlier to 37.25 billion yuan, the state firm said.

"Amid an increasingly complex and rigid global economic and trade environment ... international oil prices have fallen over last year,” the company said.

"Domestically, China’s refined fuel supply capacity is in severe overcapacity...(and) growth in the natural gas market is slowing.”

Revenue for the quarter edged up 1.8 per cent from a year ago to 618.14 billion yuan. For the first nine months, revenue rose 5.1 per cent to 1.81 trillion yuan.

PetroChina also said its natural gas import business recorded a 21.76 billion yuan net loss during the January-September period, deepening from a 19.96 billion loss recorded for the same period in 2018 due to a weaker Chinese currency and higher import cost.

The group’s crude oil output increased 2.9 per cent during the first nine months versus a year earlier to 682.7 million barrels, while gas output rose 8.7 per cent to 289.3 billion cubic feet (bcf).

The stronger growth in gas versus crude oil production follows an accelerated drilling programme in key basins such as Sichuan in the southwest, Ordos in the north and Tarim in the northwest.

This has also led to sizeable discoveries such as conventional gas deposits in the Bozi-9 well in the Tarim basin of Xinjiang region and shale gas in the Changqing-Weiyuan and Taiyang blocks in Sichuan.

The company’s Hongkong-listed shares have fallen by 18 per cent so far this year, weighed by concerns that Beijing’s plan to set up a national oil and gas pipeline group will force it to cede control of its dominant pipeline assets, which have generated steady revenues.

PetroChina, which is also China’s second-largest oil refiner, processed 906 million barrels of crude in the first nine months of the year, up 4.3 per cent from a year earlier.

Despite the growth in throughput, PetroChina’s operating profits at its refining department shrank nearly 90 per cent during the period to 3.4 billion yuan as a domestic supply overhang squeezed margins, the firm said — Reuters