PetroChina Co (中石油), the world’s second-largest company by market value, said it needs to raise 150 billion yuan (US$22 billion) in funds this year because tax payments may rise and cash flow has diminished.
Free cash flow, or the cash available for investing or financing after meeting certain expenses from operations, declined by 76.9 billion yuan last year because of tax payments and investments, the company said in a statement to the Shanghai stock exchange.
The oil producer had negative free cash flow of 44.9 billion yuan last year, according to the statement.
PetroChina plans to pay as much as US$1.4 billion for a stake in a Kazakh oil company to take advantage of lower commodity prices and expand overseas, chairman Jiang Jiemin (蔣潔敏) said on April 16. Parent China National Petroleum Corp (中石油集團) plans to sell as much as US$3 billion in bonds and may start issuing notes within two months, an industry association said on April 27.
“PetroChina still has a very healthy financial position as its debt-to-asset ratio is low,” Grace Liu (劉谷), an oil analyst at Guotai Junan Securities Hong Kong Ltd (國泰君安證券), said by telephone from Shenzhen. “It won’t be hard for them to borrow from banks.”
PetroChina faces “severe challenges” because the global financial crisis has lowered crude-oil prices and cut fuel and petrochemical demand since the second half of last year, according to the statement dated yesterday.
In order to conserve energy consumption, China, the world’s second-biggest oil user, increased the fuel consumption tax paid by refiners and importers eightfold, according to a statement on the government’s Web site on Dec. 19.
PetroChina’s fuel-consumption tax payment may jump by 71 billion yuan this year to 84.2 billion yuan because of the rate adjustment, the company said in the statement.
Shares of the oil producer fell 0.4 percent to HK$7.49 in Hong Kong at the midday break, compared with a 0.2 percent gain in the benchmark Hang Seng index.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
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