rongsheng petrochemical share price made in china

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RONGSHENG PETROCHEMICAL CO., LTD. is a China-based company principally engaged in the research, development, manufacture and distribution of chemicals and chemical fibers. The Company’s main products include aromatics, phosphotungstic acid (PTA), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) chips, terylene pre-oriented yarns (POYs), terylene fully drawn yarns (FDYs) and terylene draw textured yarns (DTYs), among others. The Company distributes its products in domestic market and to...More

Commodities & Futures: Futures prices are delayed at least 10 minutes as per exchange requirements. Change value during the period between open outcry settle and the commencement of the next day"s trading is calculated as the difference between the last trade and the prior day"s settle. Change value during other periods is calculated as the difference between the last trade and the most recent settle. Source: FactSet

Mutual Funds & ETFs: All of the mutual fund and ETF information contained in this display, with the exception of the current price and price history, was supplied by Lipper, A Refinitiv Company, subject to the following: Copyright 2019© Refinitiv. All rights reserved. Any copying, republication or redistribution of Lipper content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Lipper. Lipper shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

Fair Value is the appropriate price for the shares of a company, based on its earnings and growth rate also interpreted as when P/E Ratio = Growth Rate. Estimated return represents the projected annual return you might expect after purchasing shares in the company and holding them over the default time horizon of 5 years, based on the EPS growth rate that we have projected.

Rongsheng Petro Chemical Co, Ltd. specialises in the production and marketing of petrochemical and chemical fibres. Products include PTA yarns, fully drawn polyester yarns (FDY), pre-oriented polyester yarns (POY), polyester textured drawn yarns (DTY), polyester filaments and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) slivers.

Plans for a joint Saudi Arabia-China refining and petrochemical complex to be built in northeast China that were shelved in 2020 are now being discussed again, according tosources close to the deal. The original deal for Saudi Aramco and China’s North Industries Group (Norinco) and Panjin Sincen Group to build the US$10 billion 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) integrated refining and petrochemical facility in Panjin city was signed in February 2019. However, in the aftermath of the enduring low prices and economic damage that hit Saudi Arabia as a result of the Second Oil Price War it instigated in the first half of 2020 against the U.S. shale oil threat, Aramco pulled out of the deal in August of that year.

The fact that this landmark refinery joint venture is back under serious consideration underlines the extremely significant shift in Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical alliances in the past few years – principally away from the U.S. and its allies and towards China and its allies. Up until the 2014-2016 Oil Price War, intended by Saudi Arabia to destroy the then-nascent U.S. shale oil sector, the foundation of U.S.-Saudi relations had been the deal struck on 14 February 1945 between the then-U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Saudi King Abdulaziz. In essence, but analyzed in-depth inmy new book on the global oil markets,this was that the U.S. would receive all of the oil supplies it needed for as long as Saudi had oil in place, in return for which the U.S. would guarantee the security both of the ruling House of Saud and, by extension, of Saudi Arabia.

After the end of the 2014-2016 Oil Price War, Saudi Arabia had not only lost the upper hand in global oil markets that it had established alongside other OPEC member states with the 1973 Oil Embargo but it had also prompted a catastrophic breach of trust with its former allies in Washington. Consequently, the U.S. changed the effective terms of 1945 to: the U.S. will safeguard the security both of Saudi Arabia and of the ruling House of Saud for as long as Saudi not only guarantees that the U.S. will receive all of the oil supplies it needs for as long as Saudi has oil in place but also that Saudi Arabia does not attempt to interfere with the growth andprosperity of the U.S. shale oil sector. Shortly after that (in May 2017), the U.S. assured the Saudis that it would protect them against any Iranian attacks, provided that Riyadh also bought US$110 billion of defense equipment from the U.S. immediately and another US$350 billion worth over the next 10 years. However, the Saudis then found out that none of these weapons were able to prevent Iran from launchingsuccessful attacksagainst its key oil facilities in September 2019, or several subsequent attacks.

Concomitant with this weakening of relations between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. came a drift towards Russia first and then China. Given the reputational damage done to the perceived power of Saudi Arabia and its OPEC brothers by their inability to destroy or disable the growing threat from U.S. shale oil to their former dominance in the global oil markets, their attempts to pull oil prices back up to levels at which they could begin to repair thedamage done to their economiesby the 2014-2016 Oil Price War towards the end of 2016 also failed. At that point, fully cognisant of the enormous economic and geopolitical possibilities that were available to it by becoming a core participant in the crude oil supply/demand/pricing matrix, Russia agreed to support the OPEC production cut deal in what was to be called from then-on ‘OPEC+’, albeit in its own uniquely self-serving and ruthless fashion, again analyzed in-depth inmy new book on the global oil markets.

Given Russia’s significant leverage in the Middle East by dint of its pivotal position in making the OPEC deal credible in terms of being able to affect global oil prices, China also began to more aggressively leverage its own power with the group and in the region by dint of its being the world’s biggest net importer of crude oil and its increasing use of checkbook diplomacy. Nowhere were the two elements more in evidence than in China’s offer to buy the entire 5 percent stake of Aramco in a private placement. This was designed to enable Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to save face, given hisunsuccessful attempts from 2016 to 2020to persuade serious Western investors to have any significant part in the company’s initial public offering. Shortly after the offer was made,China was referred toby Saudi’s then-vice minister of economy and planning, Mohammed al-Tuwaijri, as: “By far one of the top markets” to diversify the funding basis of Saudi Arabia. He added that: “We will also access other technical markets in terms of unique funding opportunities, private placements, panda bonds and others.” In a similar vein, andjust last year, Saudi Aramco’s chief executive officer, Amin Nasser, said: “Ensuring the continuing security of China’s energy needs remains our [Saudi Aramco’s] highest priority — not just for the next five years but for the next 50 and beyond.”

Between the end of the 2014-2016 Oil Price War and now, there have been multiple high-level visits back and forth between Saudi Arabia and China, beginning most notably with the trip of high-ranking politicians and financiers fromChina in August 2017 to Saudi Arabia, which featured a meeting between King Salman and Chinese Vice Premier, Zhang Gaoli, in Jeddah. During the visit, Saudi Arabia first mentioned seriously that it was willing to consider funding itself partly in Chinese yuan, raising the possibility of closer financial ties between the two countries. At these meetings, according to comments at the time from then-Saudi Energy Minister, Khalid al-Falih, it was also decided that Saudi Arabia and China would establish a US$20 billion investment fund on a 50:50 basis that would invest in sectors such as infrastructure, energy, mining, and materials, among other areas. The Jeddah meetings in August 2017 followed a landmark visit to China by Saudi Arabia’s King Salman in March of that year during which around US$65 billion of business deals were signed in sectors including oil refining, petrochemicals, light manufacturing, and electronics.

Later, the first discussions about the joint Saudi-China refining and petrochemical complex in China’s northeast began, with a bonus for Saudi Arabia being that Aramco was intended to supply up to 70 percent of the crude feedstock for the complex that was to have commenced operation in 2024. This, in turn, was part of a multiple-deal series that also included three preliminary agreements to invest in Zhejiang province in eastern China. The first agreement was signed to acquire a 9 percent stake in the greenfield Zhejiang Petrochemical project, the second was a crude oil supply deal signed with Rongsheng Petrochemical, Juhua Group, and Tongkun Group, and the third was with Zhejiang Energy to build a large-scale retail fuel network over five years in Zhejiang province.

"The toughest moment has passed. Restoring consumers" confidence is what the government needs to do and is doing," said Sun Xin, a director with Shenghong Petrochemical International, a trading desk of the greenfield Shenghong Petrochemical refinery complex in Jiangsu province.

"We have seen some green shoots already in China"s economy. Especially in September, we see more congestion in terms of transportation. We see a better run rate at the refineries," said Chen Hongbin, deputy GM of Rongsheng Petrochemical (Singapore).

Rongsheng is a trading arm of the privately-held refining complex Zhejiang Petroleum & Chemical, which restarted its 200,000 b/d No.4 CDU in last week after operations were suspended for seven months, and lifted run rates to around 95% of its nameplate capacity of 800,000 b/d from 83% in August, S&P Global data showed.

Petrochemical-oriented refineries with integrated value chains and economies of scale are expected to survive the intensive competition amid capacity surplus, the panelists said.

Wu said China"s new refineries were integrated with high yields of petrochemical products to replace imports when oil product demand growth slows, ruling out the small and simple refineries.

Beijing has set a target of capping China"s refining capacity at 20 million b/d in 2025. PetroChina"s 400,000 b/d Guangdong Petrochemical and the 320,000 b/d Shenghong Petrochemical refineries are scheduled to commission in 2022, while around 149,000 b/d of independent refining capacity was set to be phased out, S&P Global data showed.

Sun noted that refining and petrochemical bases help to lower transaction and logistics costs and maximize scale, while expanding the business chain to renewable energy, CCUS projects and new materials will help the company to compete in the future.

Oil prices tell some of the story. Early last year, as the economy froze up and people stayed home, crude prices crashed, dragging chemical prices down with them. Petrochemical volumes, however, were relatively strong because some products, such as polyethylene, saw an uptick in demand.

For instance, more than a dozen members of the Global Top 50 have major plastics recycling initiatives. A similar number of companies are looking to make ammonia and hydrogen via water electrolysis rather than from natural gas. Still others are overhauling basic petrochemical processes to make them more energy efficient. Dow, Shell, Sabic, and BASF, for example, are developing ethylene crackers that run on renewable electricity.

Despite the year’s volatility, the survey was marked by few changes. Companies heavily laden with petrochemical operations generally saw declines in sales and fell in the ranking. Companies that make industrial gases or agricultural chemicals tended to rise.

Three companies in the Global Top 50 a year ago didn’t make it this year. Ecolab fell off the list because it divested an oil-field chemical business. SK Innovation and PTT Global Chemical were both victims of declines in petrochemical sales.

Now that it is breaking out chemical sales again, Shell rejoins the Global Top 50 this year after a 5-year hiatus. Rongsheng Petrochemical, which makes polyester chemicals, debuts this year. The former DowDuPont agricultural chemical business, Corteva Agriscience, made the cut as well.

Saudi Arabia’s state oil company, Saudi Aramco, completed its purchase of a 70% stake in the petrochemical maker Sabic in June 2020. The purchase was meant to diversify Aramco, which today depends heavily on oil and gas. But soon after the deal closed, the firms announced they were reevaluating the scope of a planned complex that was to convert 400,000 barrels per day of crude oil into 9 million metric tons (t) per year of petrochemicals. Their new, more modest plan is to build an ethylene cracker and derivatives units that will be integrated with existing Aramco refineries. In another instance of Sabic and Aramco working together, the companies shipped 40 t of ammonia to a power plant in Japan last September. The ammonia is considered “blue” because carbon dioxide emitted during its manufacture was captured and used for enhanced oil recovery and methanol production in Saudi Arabia. In another strategic move, Sabic carved out a stand-alone business that includes its polyphenylene oxide, polyetherimide, and compounding units. The company got the businesses with its purchase of GE Plastics in 2007. Sabic had sought to combine them with Clariant’s masterbatch business, but those talks broke down in 2019.

The $9.4 billion petrochemical complex that Formosa Plastics is planning in St. James Parish, Louisiana, is in hot water. It faces fierce opposition both locally from community organizations worried about pollution and nationally from environmental groups that wish to stop the mounting production of plastics. Sharon Lavigne, head of the local group Rise St. James, recently received the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for her efforts, a sign that the Formosa project has high-profile opposition. The project also faces practical hurdles. Notably, the US Army Corps of Engineers suspended a permit for the facility in November. Formosa Plastics had better luck in Point Comfort, Texas, where it started up an ethylene cracker and low-density polyethylene unit last year.

Most large chemical companies nowadays are plunging into plastics recycling to counter public backlash, and Lyondell­Basell Industries is at the front of the pack. CEO Bob Patel is one of the founders of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, formed by industry to address the recycling problem. And Lyondell has its own initiatives. It and the waste management firm Suez bought the plastics recycler Tivaco and are combining it with Quality Circular Polymers, a recycling venture Lyondell and Suez started in 2018. Quality Circular has some high-profile clients. For example, Samsonite is using its resin for a line of sustainable suitcases. Meanwhile, Lyondell continues to grow its core petrochemical business, often on the cheap. In December, the firm bought, for the bargain price of $2 billion, a 50% interest in a new ethylene cracker and two polyethylene plants that the struggling Sasol had built. Similarly, it bought into an ethylene cracker joint venture already under construction in China.

While oil companies such as Shell and BP were redefining themselves as alternative energy players in recent years, ExxonMobil stuck with petroleum. The firm was taking what it considered a realistic position. Oil and gas are cheap and convenient, it argued, and would be hard to dislodge from the energy market for the next few decades. But COVID-19 hit the oil and gas business hard. ExxonMobil racked up a gaping corporate loss of $28 billion in 2020, even as its chemical unit earned an operating profit of $2.7 billion. The company is facing shareholder pressure to change, and it is starting to respond. For example, in April, it outlined a $100 billion plan to store 100 million metric tons per year of carbon dioxide in the Gulf of Mexico. The new environmental consciousness trickles down into chemicals. At a complex in France, ExxonMobil Chemical plans to host a pyrolysis plant that breaks down waste plastics into chemical raw materials. And at its Baytown, Texas, chemical facility, it is testing a plastics recycling process. Separately, in a rare move, ExxonMobil is divesting a business, selling its Santoprene thermoplastic vulcanizate operation to Celanese for $1.15 billion.

PetroChina will bring a pair of unique petrochemical projects—which cost a total of $2.5 billion—on line later this year. The company is building ethylene crackers in Tarim and Changqing, China, that will use ethane sourced from domestic natural gas fields as their feedstock. These projects wouldn’t be unusual in the US or the Middle East, where oil and natural gas are cheap and plentiful, but ethylene crackers in resource-constrained China are mostly fed with naphtha derived from imported oil. The country also sources petrochemical feedstocks from coal. Both routes to ethylene are relatively expensive and put China at a competitive disadvantage.

Hengli Petrochemical’s growth has been amazing. Last year, the company came out of nowhere to debut at 26 in the Global Top 50. In 2020, and despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese petrochemical maker’s chemical sales grew by a whopping 46%. Construction at an almost unbelievable pace is responsible for this growth. In 2020 alone, Hengli started two large production lines for purified terephthalic acid (PTA), a polyester raw material, in Dalian, China. The lines, which use technology from Invista, bring Hengli’s PTA capacity to 12 million metric tons (t) per year. In November, Hengli signed a licensing agreement, also with Invista, for two more PTA lines at its site in Huizhou, China. In addition, the company plans to build a plant in Dalian to make a biodegradable plastic from PTA, adipic acid, and 1,4-butanediol. Hengli says the plant will have 450,000 t of annual capacity, a large figure for a biodegradable plastic.

Many people would think of Dow and BASF as the technology giants in industrial chemistry. But Braskem, a Brazilian petrochemical maker, is a technological heavy hitter too. It is partnering with the University of Illinois Chicago on a route to ethylene based on the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide from flue gas. At its chlor-alkali complex in Maceió, Brazil, Braskem will host a pilot plant to make ethylene dichloride using a novel process developed by the start-up Chemetry. In this energy-saving process, called eShuttle, chloride ions react with cuprous chloride (CuCl) to form cupric chloride (CuCl2), which reacts with ethylene to form the polyvinyl chloride raw material. In Pittsburgh, Braskem recently completed a $10 million expansion of its technology and innovation center to allow work on recycling, 3D printing, and catalysis.

The Chinese polyurethane raw materials supplier bucked the general trend of sales decline in 2020 with a nearly 8% increase in chemical sales and a 10% rise in profits. After a weak first half of the year, demand bounced back in the second half, the company says. The COVID-19 “pandemic in China was rapidly and effectively controlled,” Wanhua Chemical says in its annual report. “Domestic market demands and the downstream export overseas were resumed rapidly, and growth of prices of chemical products was recovered.” Wanhua sought to build a beachhead in the US with a $1.25 billion project to build a methylene diphenyl diisocyanate plant in Louisiana. But US-China trade friction and a jump in construction costs appear to have prompted the firm to shelve the initiative.

Johnson Matthey’s chemical sales edged up by over 12% during its fiscal year, in part owing to strong prices for precious metals such as platinum, which the company uses to make catalytic converters. JM, however, has been trying to evolve. Similar to how big oil companies like Shell are redefining themselves as alternative energy firms, JM is trying to pivot toward batteries and hydrogen. Earlier this year, for instance, the company announced it will build a second plant, in Vaasa, Finland, for a cathode material that contains lithium, cobalt, and nickel and that will be used in lithium-ion batteries. Additionally, JM is undertaking a “strategic review” of its pharmaceutical chemical business, which makes drug ingredients.

Recent years have seen Chinese petrochemical producers, often involved in the polyester supply chain, join the Global Top 50. Hengli Petrochemical is one of those firms. And now Rongsheng Petrochemical is another. The company is one of the largest producers of purified terephthalic acid in the world, with 13 million metric tons of capacity at plants in Dalian, Ningbo, and Hainan, China. It also makes polyester resin and fiber. It is an investor in Zhejiang Petrochemical, a large oil refinery and petrochemical complex that is currently starting up.

Sustainability continues to be a focus for the Austrian petrochemical maker. In June, the company signed an agreement to buy oil from Renasci Oostende Recycling, which uses a thermal process to break down postconsumer plastic. Borealis will turn this feedstock into plastics again at its complex in Porvoo, Finland. Borealis also started up a demonstration unit at its polyethylene plant in Antwerp, Belgium, to test a heat-recovery technology developed by the start-up Qpinch. The technology is modeled on the adenosine triphosphate–adenosine diphosphate cycle in biology. Separately, Borealis put its fertilizer business up for sale in February.

Sasol ended a saga in November when it started up a low-density polyethylene plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The unit was the last of the plants the South African company built as part of a $12.8 billion petrochemical complex. The project went $4 billion over budget, leading to the ouster of its co-CEOs. To strengthen its balance sheet, Sasol aims to divest $6 billion in assets. To that end, the company formed a joint venture with LyondellBasell Industries to run the ethylene cracker and two polyethylene plants it built in Lake Charles, essentially selling half these operations for $2 billion. Sasol is keeping alcohols, ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol, and ethoxylation plants at the site. Separately, Sasol sold its 50% interest in the Gemini HDPE high-density polyethylene joint venture with Ineos for $400 million.

Podcast: China"s petrochemical refiners are making their presence felt way beyond the country"s borders. How will this impact global supply, demand, and trade balances? Will global operating rates be reduced?

Textile giants Rongsheng and Hengli have shaken up China"s cozy, state-dominated oil market this year with the addition of close to 1mn b/d of new crude distillation capacity and vast, integrated downstream complexes. Petrochemical products, rather than conventional road fuels, are the driving force for this new breed of private sector refiner. And more are on their way.

Tom: And today we are discussing the advent of petrochemical refineries in China, refineries that have been built to produce mainly petrochemical feedstocks. Just a bit of background here, these two big new private sector firms, Rongsheng and Hengli, have each opened massive, shiny new 400,000 b/d refineries in China this year. Hengli at Changxing in Northeast Dalian and Rongsheng at Zhoushan in Zhejiang Province on the East coast. For those unfamiliar with Chinese geography, Dalian is up by China"s land border with North Korea and Zhoushan is an island across the Hangzhou Bay from Shanghai. And the opening of these two massive new refineries by chemical companies is shaking up China"s downstream market. But China is a net exporter of the core refinery products, gasoline, diesel, and jet. So, building refineries doesn"t sound like a purely commercial decision. Is it political? What"s behind it? How will it affect the makeup of China"s petrochemical product imports?

Chuck: And clearly, the driver here for Rongsheng and Hengli, who as Tom mentioned, are chemical companies, they are the world"s largest producers of purified terephthalic acid, known as PTA, which is the main precursor to make polyester, polyester for clothing and PET bottles. And each of them were importing massive amounts of paraxylene, paraxylene being the main raw material to make PTA. And paraxylene comes from the refining of oil. And really the alternate value for paraxylene or its precursors would be to blend into gasoline to increase octane. So, when looking to take a step upstream in terms of reverse or vertical integration, they"ve quickly found themselves not just becoming paraxylene producers, but in fact becoming refiners of crude to begin with, which of course, is quite complex and it involves all kinds of co-products and byproducts. And as many know, the refining of oil, the primary driver there, as Tom has mentioned, is to produce motor fuels. So, we"re reversing this where the petrochemicals become the strategic product and we look to optimize or maybe even limit the amount of motor fuels produced.

Tom: And presumably then, the creation of so much petrochemical feedstock production capacity is going to have a pretty major impact on global supply-demand and trade balances.

Chuck: And margins, of course, as well because no one wants to shut down their unit just to accommodate the new Chinese production. And what remains to be seen is global operating rates for these PX units will be reduced to maybe unsustainable levels. And as margins come down, they"ll be down for everyone, but the most efficient suppliers or producers will be the ones that survive. And in the case of Hengli and Rongsheng, low feedstock costs, if you"re driving down the cost of paraxylene, you take the benefit on the polyester side because now you have very competitive or very low-priced feedstock.

Rongsheng is trying to build itself into a retail brand around Shanghai and the Zhejiang area. And Hengli is trying to muscle into the wholesale market on a national level, so it"s gonna be selling products across China. And in that respect, as we were discussing earlier, in fact, Rongsheng appears to have an advantage because where it"s located on the East Coast of China, that region is net short still of transport fuels, but Hengli in the Northeast, that"s a very competitive refining environment. It"s a latecomer to an already pretty saturated market: PetroChina, a state-owned oil giant, is a huge refiner up in Northeast China with its own oil fields, so a ready-made source of low-cost crude. And it"s also very close to the independent sector refining hub in Shandong Province, which is the largest concentration of refineries in China. So, I think there are definite challenges for them on the road fuel front, even if it sounds like they"re going to be pretty competitively placed further downstream in the paraxylene market.

Tom: Well, that"s one of the peculiarities of the Chinese market. As private sector companies, neither Rongsheng nor Hengli are allowed currently to export transport fuels. That"s a legacy concern of the Chinese government to ensure energy self-sufficiency downstream to make sure there"s adequate supply on the domestic market of those fuels. So, that is a real impediment for them. And when they ramp up production of gasoline, diesel, and jet, they are driving down domestic prices and they are essentially forcing product into the seaborne market produced by other refineries. So, in that respect, the emergence of Hengli in Northeast China on PetroChina"s doorstep has created a huge new sense of competition for PetroChina in particular. And I think certainly when you look at their recent financial data, it"s quite clear that they are struggling to adapt to the new environment in which it"s essentially export or die, because these new, massive refineries are crushing margins inside China.

Chuck: And going back specifically to the Hengli and Rongsheng projects, it"s interesting to note, again, going to an order of magnitude or perspective, Hengli is producing or has capacity to produce 4.5 million tons of paraxylene. And in phase one, Rongsheng will have capacity to produce 4 million tons. And I know those are just large numbers, but again, bear in mind that last year, global demand was 43.5 million. So, effectively, these two plants, they could account for 20% of global demand. Just these two projects themselves to give you an idea of just how massive they are and how impactful they can be. Impactful or disruptive, it remains to be seen.

Tom: A sign it doesn"t do things by halves. Although that said, one of the interesting things they have done is essentially halved their transport fuel yields. So, where in a conventional refinery, your combined output of gasoline, diesel, and jet, those core products, might be in the region of 80%, when you look at these new refineries, they"ve really cut that back down to 40% or 50%. And there are new petrochemical refineries springing up, and it"ll be very interesting to see how disruptive those are to the petrochemical market. But in the conventional refining market, they are, I think under pressure to do even more to reduce their exposure to already weakened gasoline and diesel markets. I mean, Shenghong — this new textile company who"s starting up another massive new conventional refinery designed to produce petrochemical products in 2021, I think — they"ve managed to reduce that combined yield to around 30%. They"ve reduced that from an original blueprint.

Chuck: It"s remarkable, but just a note of caution, there have been other petrochemical and refinery projects built recently in Saudi Arabia and in Malaysia, in particular, with established engineering and established chemical and refining companies. And they"ve had trouble meeting the targeted dates for startup and it"s one thing to be mechanically complete, it"s another thing to be operationally complete. But both Hengli and Rongsheng have amazed me at how fast they were able to complete these projects. And by all reports so far, they are producing very, very effectively, but it does remain to be seen why these particular projects are able to run whereas the Aramco projects in Malaysia and in Rabigh in Saudi Arabia have had much greater problems.

Tom: It sounds like in terms of their paraxylene production, they are going to be among the most competitive in the world. They have these strategies to cope with oversupplied markets and refined fuels, but there is certainly an element of political support which has enabled them to get ahead of the pack, I guess. And suddenly in China, Prime Minister Li Keqiang visited the Hengli plant shortly after it came on stream in July, and Zhejiang, the local government there is a staunch backer of Rongsheng"s project. And Zhoushan is the site of a national government initiative creating oil trading and logistics hub. Beijing wants Zhoushan to overtake Singapore as a bunkering location and it"s one of the INE crude futures exchanges, registered storage location. So, both of these locations in China do enjoy a lot of political support, and there are benefits to that which I think do allow them to whittle down the lead times for these mega projects.

So, thank you for joining us today, and it"ll be interesting to follow all of these developments because there still are so many moving parts. And you can follow this on the petroleum side with China Petroleum, the publication in which Tom edits out of London or some of our petrochemical reports. We do daily assessments on the paraxylene markets as well as monthly outlooks, which include global price forecasts. And we have databases which show supply, demand, and trade flows, etc. And then also please tune in for future episodes of the "China Connection." And we thank you for your time and attention.

Prior to 1978, most of the product was produced by the state-owned business, and the share in product outputted by state-owned business had decreased in 2002.

China"s production of steel increased from 100 million tons in 2000 to 250 million tons in 2004. It caused rising demand for raw materials which is necessary for steel production, included pig iron, iron ore, scrap metal, lime and dolomite, coke and coal. The price of iron ore increased by over 70% from 2004 to 2005. Thus, in December 2005, China decided to limit production of steel to not more than 400 million tons per year within five years, in order to lower the increasing rate of raw material prices.

PetroChina (OTCPK:PCCYF), China"s largest integrated oil & gas company, posted better-than-expected net profit numbers in its latest quarter, outpacing the low-teens % decline in oil prices during the same period. In effect, YTD numbers suggest thecompany is now on track to deliver the best full-year earnings in the past decade. Whether PetroChina delivers will depend on its pricing power sustaining through the remainder of the year. Given its success thus far, I suspect management"s aggressive winter price hikes should keep import gas losses well under control.

More broadly, PetroChina remains levered to oil prices, and a >$80/bbl scenario should keep upstream profitability elevated. Strong earnings will be well-received by income investors - assuming an in-line 45% payout, a dividend per share of RMB0.32 (or an attractive >10% yield) seems likely. There could be incremental upside to the capital return as well, should management opt to distribute proceedsfrom recent asset disposals. While there are risks to investing in China at this juncture, the deeply discounted ~0.4x P/B valuation offers an adequate margin of safety to investors.

Heading into its latest print, oil prices were down QoQ, so expectations were low. Yet, PetroChina"s gross profit declined by a lesser amount QoQ, outpacing the oil price weakness due to the outperformance of the upstream and natural gas segments. To recap, E&P EBIT was up ~29% QoQ against a low-teens % QoQ decline in benchmark oil prices. While some of the delta was down to the lagged effect of its oil realizations vs. the benchmark, E&P profitability would still have been strong, highlighting PetroChina"s operating leverage gains in the current oil price regime. As a result, the Q3 free cash flow was also robust, further helped by favorable working capital changes and a YoY decline in capex spending.

The only real blemish on the E&P side was total production, which was down by 4% QoQ due to seasonality. Still, on a YTD basis, production remains on track to hit full-year guidance. I wouldn"t rule out a ramp-up from here - peer CNOOC (OTCPK:CEOHF) recently signaled potential mid to long-term production target hikes, and thus, PetroChina management could well follow suit. Going forward, PetroChina"s E&P earnings remain levered to oil prices, with the sweet spot around $85/bbl; beyond this threshold, increased royalties and lower refining income will likely limit the net positive EBITDA impact.

While refining profits were down on inventory losses and weak product spreads, PetroChina"s refining segment is still in the black, albeit with a slim operating margin. By comparison, domestic peers like Sinopec (OTCPK:SNPTY) posted an operating loss, while Rongsheng Petrochemical had even lower margins at ~0.5%.

Despite the larger gas import losses, PetroChina"s natural gas marketing business sustained a positive ~2% operating margin in its latest quarter. Of note, import gas losses narrowed slightly this time around amid reduced import volumes QoQ in reaction to the acceleration in domestic gas supply growth. Additional drivers include off-season domestic gas price hikes and a favorable mix shift toward terminal gas sales. With domestic sales volume also up ~4% YoY (relative to flattish gains for the rest of the Chinese market), PetroChina has likely made good domestic market share gains as well through the headwinds.

On a YTD basis, import gas losses (excluding tax rebate) are now at RMB18.5bn, so PetroChina"s RMB20-25bn FY22 import gas loss target seems well within reach. Also helping will be the planned winter gas price hikes this year, which is set to be one of the more aggressive rounds yet, as the company looks to pass through the import gas cost increase to downstream customers. Thus, expect more upside to realized city gate gas prices, which are already running ~35% above the benchmark price so far this year, as an even higher price hike this winter flows through to the P&L.

PetroChina"s strong quarter saw the E&P and Natural Gas division outperform, with even gas import losses coming in better than feared. The refining division was also more resilient than expected, remaining profitable for another quarter despite the headwinds. Over the mid to long term, PetroChina"s upstream business should continue to benefit from tighter supply and higher oil prices, while a favorable mix shift toward low-cost Russian piped gas imports and domestic gas production bode well for gas profitability. Finally, the asset disposals earlier this year, at a premium to book, presents upside to the already high capital return going forward (the current yield stands at >10%). At the current ~60% discount to book, the stock offers compelling value to investors.