Investing.com - Hong Kong-listed China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (HK:0386) (Sinopec), China’s largest refiner, posted its best half year profit on strong upstream and refining business, and said it expects higher fuel sales in the second half.
The company said in an earnings statement on Sunday that first-half net income was 41.6 billion yuan ($6.05 billion), up 54% from the same period a year earlier.
Total revenue in the first six months of the year rose to 1.3 trillion yuan, up 12% from a year earlier, the statement said.
“Sinopec ramped up efforts to sell fuel in domestic market by giving a discount especially for diesel in the second quarter. The discounts have boosted sales volume but hurt revenue,” Eyebright Securities said in a research note last week after the company gave a results forecast.
The company proposed an interim dividend of 0.16 yuan a share, a 60% increase from the previous year. Sinopec’s stocks gained as much as 5% on Monday following the release of the earnings report.