SHANGHAI, China - PetroChina is expected to report that its first-half net profit fell by at least a third, analysts say, as losses in its refining business eroded gains from surging crude oil prices.

Even last year when PetroChina’s market value briefly topped $1 trillion by some calculations trouble was brewing at the traded unit of the country’s leading oil and gas producer.

While other global oil giants are reporting record profits, Chinese government price controls prevent PetroChina and other domestic refiners from passing on higher costs for crude oil to consumers. So their refining operations are bearing heavy losses, despite billions of dollars in subsidies.

On Monday, Asia’s biggest refiner, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, reported a 77 percent plunge in net profit, to 8.3 billion yuan ($1.2 billion), in the January-June half-year. That compared with 37.8 billion yuan in net profit a year ago.

The precipitous decline came despite 33.4 billion yuan ($4.9 billion) in subsidies in the first half of the year, Sinopec said.

In the first quarter, PetroChina reported that net profit plunged 31.5 percent to 28.8 billion yuan. First-half results are expected Wednesday.

Qiu Xiaofeng, a petroleum analyst at China Merchants Securities in Shanghai, estimates that PetroChina will report 48.5 billion yuan ($7 billion) in net profit for the first half, down about 40 percent from 81.8 billion yuan in January-June 2007.

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written by Andrew