PetroChina posts sharp fall in financial results

Hit by rising import costs and increased government pricing control, Petrochina has posted a sharp fall in results

PetroChina continues to feature in fearful headlines in the western press about the rise of Chinese national oil companies (NOCs) gobbling up overseas assets, yet all three of the country's NOCs posted big falls in profits last year as the costs of overseas expansion and problems at home take their toll. On 21 March, Beijing-based PetroChina, the publicly traded arm of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), posted a steeper-than-expected 13.3% drop in 2012 net profit to RMB115.3 billion ($18.4bn), due in part to heavy losses incurred at its natural gas and refinery businesses. This was significantly below the average RMB125.1bn of net profit that was forecast in a poll of analysts by T