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BEIJING, March 24 (Reuters) – Sinopec Corp., the largest refiner in Asia, released its smallest quarterly net profit since at least the third quarter of 2016 after its oil trading unit, Unipec, recorded one of largest derivatives trading losses in China for almost 10 years.
China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., better known as Sinopec, said its fourth-quarter net profit plunged 76 percent from last year, to stand at just 3.1 percent. billion yuan ($ 461.57 million). Its revenue rose 33 percent to 818 billion yuan over the same period, according to Reuters calculations.
According to Sinopec, Unipec recorded a net loss of 4.02 billion yuan last year. Unipec lost 4.65 billion yuan of crude oil hedge coverage in the fourth quarter.
For the year 2018, the public company still managed robust growth. The company's net profit rose 23% to 63 billion yuan, the best annual results since 2013, and its total business turnover amounted to 2.89 billion yuan, compared with 2 billion 368 billion yuan the previous year.
Strong growth in 2018 is mainly due to higher selling prices and the volume of refined products and chemicals, the company said in a document filed on Sunday at the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
The company distributed a dividend of 0.26 yuan per share.
$ 1 = 6.7162 yuan
Reportage of Meng Meng, Min Zhang and Dominique Patton;
edited by Neil Fullick
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