The need for further gas price reforms in China was underscored last week when state-controlled PetroChina revealed it continued to lose billions of dollars on natural gas imports last year (WGI Nov.6'13). The Hong Kong-listed firm lost 41.87 billion yuan ($6.7 billion) on the imports — excluding a value-added tax refund issued by the Chinese government — roughly the same as in 2012. The company, which is responsible for all of China's piped gas imports, lost 28.26 billion yuan ($4.5 billion) on pipeline imports of 27.453 Bern from Central Asia and 420 million yuan ($67 million) on the 409 MMcm of gas sent from Myanmar, which began arriving in the second half of 2013. It also lost 20.28 billion yuan ($3.3 billion) on its 7.335 Bern of LNG imports. Despite these losses, PetroChina's natural gas and pipeline business actually made a profit of 28.9 billion yuan ($4.6 billion) in 2013, although analysts attribute this to one-off gains arising from the sale of interests in domestic pipeline projects.
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