An oil production facility of Sinopec, China's largest oil refiner, based in Taizhou, East China's Jiangsu Province, fully resumed drilling and well repair work on Sunday. The facility's daily output is more than 1,200 tons. Photo: cnsphotos

China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec), China's largest petroleum refiner, saw net losses of 22.88 billion yuan ($3.33 billion) in the first half of 2020 amid sluggish demand for refined products hit by COVID-19, in contrast with a net profit of 31.34 billion yuan seen a year earlier. 

Nevertheless, the company saw net earnings of 4.8 billion yuan in the second quarter with China's easing of coronavirus restriction measures.

The company expects demand for refined oil products will recover faster due to positive trends in the Chinese economy. 

Sinopec's revenue in the first two quarters came to 1.03 trillion yuan, down 31 percent year-on-year. 

The company produced 225.71 million barrels of oil and gas equivalent in the first half year, including 124.05 million barrels of crude and 512.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas in domestic oil and gas fields.

The company processed 111 million tons of crude oil and produced 67.19 million tons of gasoline over the same period.  

In the first half year, Sinopec's total sales volume of refined oil products hit 107.03 million tons with 52.5 million tons of retail volume. Its second-quarter retail volume rose by 40.5 percent from the first quarter, and 2.7 percent year-on-year.

Its first-half capital expenditure came to 44.99 billion yuan including 20.47 billion yuan used for the exploration and development sector.

Global Times