Mixed fortunes for oil, gas giants in first half

The first half of 2019 has witnessed different profit outcomes among China's top three oil and gas companies, which experts said was mainly due to the profit plunge in downstream refining and chemicals sector dragged by overcapacity and waning demand.

According to their recently released semiannual reports, Petro-China Co Ltd and CNOOC Ltd posted rises in first-half earnings, while that for China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec) was 24 percent down year-on-year.

Total revenue of PetroChina over the first six months of 2019 hit 1.2 trillion yuan ($167.39 billion), rising 6.8 percent from the first half of last year. Its earnings were 28.42 billion yuan, up from 27.44 billion yuan from a year earlier.