HONG KONG, March 25 — China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, the world’s biggest refiner, will pay a record-high dividend as its massive refining segment helped it post a nearly 10 per cent increase in full-year profit.

Net income climbed to 51.2 billion yuan (RM31.7 billion), the company known as Sinopec said in a statement to the Shanghai stock exchange today. The company proposed a 0.5 yuan per share total dividend payout for 2017, the most since its Hong Kong listing in 2000 and above a forecast for 0.17 yuan in data compiled by Bloomberg. The company also flagged 22 billion yuan in impairments, mostly in its upstream assets.

While oil’s rally has helped Sinopec cut losses in its production and exploration segment, its refining and chemicals units have helped it ride out the volatility of oil’s crash as margins from making fuels and petrochemicals improve.

The company has also shifted its upstream focus toward producing more natural gas, seeking to support President Xi Jinping’s drive of using more of the fuel instead of coal. The company’s total output gained 3.4 per cent to 446 million barrels of oil equivalent last year, it said in January, with gas rising 19 per cent while crude slid 3.3 per cent. It forecasts crude production will drop for a fourth year in 2018 and gas will rise further.

Sinopec’s profit missed a 53.6 billion yuan median estimate from 18 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Revenue rose 22 per cent to 2.36 trillion yuan. Its shares on Friday fell 2.2 per cent to HK$6.59 compared with the benchmark Hang Seng Index’s 2.5 per cent drop.

Separately, state-owned peer PetroChina Co, the country’s biggest oil and gas producer, said Thursday full-year profit tripled to 22.8 billion yuan. Cnooc Ltd, China’s top offshore oil and gas explorer, will probably report that earnings jumped about 50-fold last year when it announces results on March 29, according to estimates in a Bloomberg survey. — Bloomberg