The annual average growth of CNPC's profit is 28.3 percent.

CNPC's total income over the past five years was 2.44 trillion yuan with an annual average growth of 14.3 percent. The company paid taxes of 457.3 billion yuan, up 15.2 percent annually.

The total assets of the company reached 1.17 trillion yuan at the end of 2005, 77.7 percent higher than in 2000 and the value of shareholdings grew by 87.2 percent from 2000 to 2005 to reach 737.4 billion yuan.

The CNPC produced a total of 589.26 million tons of crude oil in the past five years with an annual average growth of 2.6 percent. Its total output of natural gas was 141.6 billion cubic meters, increasing by an average of 16.1 percent annually.

The company refined 490.61 million tons of crude oil from 2000 to 2005 with an annual average growth of 7.1 percent and produced a total of 8.7 million tons of ethylene, up 4.8 percent annually.

The accumulated overseas investment of CNPC came to 59.6 billion yuan (US$7.39 billion), the overseas edition of the People's Daily has said.

Besides, CNPC's proven oil reserves increased by 1.48 billion tons, and oil and natural gas production capacity reached 50 million tons, the report said on Monday.

The group has established five oil and natural gas production bases in Africa, central Asia, America, the Asian and Pacific region and the Middle East.

The CNPC witnessed a fast growth in overseas oil and natural gas production in 2005, with crude oil output amounting to 35.82 million tons, and natural gas output 4.02 billion cubic meters.

(Xinhua News Agency January 18, 2006)