SINOPEC INVESTMENT WILL UP

REUTERS - China's Sinopec Corp said on Sunday it would raise spending by 17.7 percent this year after posting its best annual earnings since 2013.

The company, officially known as China Petroleum and Chemical Corp, said net income rose by 10.1 percent year on year to 51.1 billion yuan ($8.10 billion) in 2017, while revenues climbed 22.2 percent to 2.36 billion yuan as oil prices advanced.

Fourth-quarter net profit, however, came in at 12.746 billion yuan, down 26.1 percent year on year, according to Reuters calculations.

In a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Sinopec said it had allocated 117 billion yuan of capital expenditure for 2018, up from an actual spend of 99.38 billion yuan last year.

That includes a 55 percent hike in upstream spending to 48.5 billion yuan, as China's biggest refiner looks to make the most of a rally in oil prices since early February to over $70 a barrel.

Rival PetroChina on Thursday said it would also lift spending on exploration and production in 2018, by 3.5 percent, despite a drop in fourth-quarter earnings.

Sinopec said some of the funds would go towards building more shale gas production capacity in southwest China, as well as on boosting output from oil projects in the northwest of the country.

The company expects to produce 290 million barrels of crude oil in 2018, or approximately 795,000 barrels per day, which is slightly down from 293.7 million barrels in 2017 and would mean Sinopec's oil output declining for a fourth straight year.

It also plans to produce 974.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas, up 6.8 percent from 2017.

"We expect the natural gas market to grow rapidly and international oil prices to be stable," Sinopec said. ($1 = 6.3110 Chinese yuan renminbi)

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Earlier:

2017, November, 9, 13:35:00 U.S. - CHINA LNG China’s top state oil major Sinopec, one of the country’s top banks and its sovereign wealth fund have agreed to help develop Alaska’s liquefied natural gas sector as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit, the U.S. government said on Thursday. The agreement will involve investment of up to $43 billion, create up to 12,000 U.S. jobs during construction, reduce the trade deficit between the United States and Asia by $10 billion a year, and give China clean energy.

2017, March, 27, 18:40:00 SINOPEC NET PROFIT UP TO 74% The state-owned company, known as Sinopec Corp, saw fourth quarter net profit jump to 17.25 billion yuan from 9.9 billion yuan in the third quarter, it said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

2017, January, 13, 18:40:00 CHINA'S OIL&GAS REFORMS SHARES of China National Petroleum Corp and Sinopec rebounded during the week on reforms that are set to transform the two oil and gas giants into more competitive and market-focused entities.

2016, November, 7, 18:45:00 CHINA'S SHALE GAS UP Sinopec Ltd. reported that Fuling shale gas field in southwestern China produced a cumulative 3.76 billion cu m of gas from January to September. The 107% increase in production was accompanied by additional processing capacity of 5.5-6.5 bcm, the company said. In 2014, Sinopec announced plans to bring production capacity to 10 bcm/year by 2017.

2016, August, 31, 18:35:00 SINOPEC NET PROFIT DOWN 21.6% China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) has reported a 21.6% drop in net profit for the six months that ended on June 30 as international oil and natural gas prices remained low.

2016, June, 22, 18:00:00 REPSOL VS SINOPEC: $5.5 BLN The claim relates to a U.K. joint venture between the Chinese and a Canadian firm which the Spanish oil producer acquired last year.

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