The National Bureau of Statistics said in a report yesterday that profit among oil refiners in the first 11 months totaled 6.7 billion yuan (US$817 million), compared with a 3.8 billion yuan loss a year earlier.

Profit among Chinese industrial companies rose by a fifth in the first 11 months to 496 billion yuan.

Because of fears of a possible U.S. attack on Iraq and the ongoing oil strike in Ve-nezuela, crude futures have piled up almost half to near US$30 a barrel in New York.

"Rife speculation is that crude prices will maintain an upward trend sparked by strong buying in refined products, causing prices to dramatically grow," said an oil refinery official on condition of anonymity.

The producers' price for gasoline in China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., the country's biggest refinery, rose 24.7 percent after several adjustments to about 4,180 yuan a metric ton.

China's governmental regulators on refined product prices periodically raise the price level in line with the world trend.

"The country's booming car market helped our sales this year," said the official, without providing figures.

At the same time, a rebound in domestic petrochemicals also helped oil refiners to gain profit.

The petrochemical business accounts for a large proportion of the balance sheets in many domestic refineries, analysts said.

"Generally speaking, earnings for domestic petrochemical names saw a two-digit increase," said Li Xiaofeng, a GF Securities analyst.

The output in some basic chemical products, such as ethylene, increased but still couldn't fulfill the strong domestic appetite.

As a result, Shanghai Petrochemical Co. saw its net profit during the first nine months surge almost fivefold to 487.43 million yuan from the same period last year.

China Petroleum earnings between January and September rose 10.8 percent to 9.06 billion yuan.

Oil refining was the third most profitable category of 40 industries tracked from January to November, behind transportation equipment and chemicals.

(Shanghai Daily December 25, 2002)