| PetroChina tops rivals in 1st-half production |
SHANGHAI, July 17 -- PETROCHINA Co, the nation's biggest oil company, increased first-half production 3.7 percent, surpassing growth at Exxon Mobil Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc as China intensifies efforts to meet energy demand.
Oil and natural gas output rose to the equivalent of 3.05 million barrels of oil a day, the Beijing-based company said yesterday. Oil production gained 0.1 percent from a year earlier, while gas jumped 16.5 percent.
PetroChina will outspend Exxon Mobil, Shell and BP Plc this year to expand supplies to the world's fastest-growing major economy. A government-backed drive to acquire and open fields has enabled Chinese companies to increase output as production at their global rivals falters.
"Globally, most producers are just trying to maintain their current output levels," Grace Liu, an oil analyst at Guotai Jun'an Securities (Hong Kong) Ltd, told Bloomberg News. "PetroChina achieved the target it set for oil output. The natural gas number is a bit lower than management guidance, but with fields coming on stream in the second half, there will be more increases."
PetroChina's oil production reached 2.32 million barrels a day in the first six months of this year as daily gas output climbed to 4.41 billion cubic feet, PetroChina said in a statement posted on its Website. The average price PetroChina earned for its crude oil dropped 1.9 percent to US$57.66 a barrel. Gas sold for 4.53 percent more, at US$2.54 per thousand cubic feet.
PetroChina aims to produce the equivalent of three million barrels of oil a day this year. Oil production may rise to 2.3 million barrels a day, with daily gas output reaching 4.56 billion cubic feet
Fields overseas contributed 138,000 barrels a day of oil and 131 million cubic feet of gas a day in the first six months.
Exxon Mobil's oil and gas production fell 2.7 percent to the equivalent of 4.44 million barrels of crude a day in the first quarter, the world's biggest company by market value said on April 26. Shell's first-quarter output dropped 6.3 percent, Europe's biggest oil company said on May 3.
Chevron Corp, the second-largest US oil company, said second-quarter oil and natural-gas output was little changed from a year earlier.
PetroChina unveiled plans in May to spend 40 billion yuan (US$5.2 billion) by 2012 developing the nation's biggest oil discovery in almost half a century. The Jidong Nanpu field in northern China's Bohai Bay area has reserves equivalent to 7.5 billion barrels of oil, and may yield about 200,000 barrels a day by 2012, the company said.
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