PetroChina Company Limited, China's largest oil producer, said on Monday that its first-quarter net profit slid 28.6 percent year-on-year, reduced by below-cost fuel prices and windfall taxes.

Net profit totaled 26.5 billion yuan (about 3.8 billion U.S. dollars) in the first three months, while income from operations rose 41.9 percent to 259 billion yuan, the company said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Monday evening.

It attributed the profit slump to higher payments of a special tax on domestic crude oil sold at more than 40 U.S. dollars a barrel and state ceilings on domestic refined oil products.

The fuel price curb also eroded the first-quarter net profit of Sinopec, China's largest oil refiner, which reported on Sunday a 65.78-percent profit slump.

The first-quarter realized price of PetroChina's crude oil surged 63 percent year-on-year to 87.93 U.S. dollars per barrel, while the price of natural gas was up 24.5 percent to 3.15 U.S. dollars per thousand cubic feet, according to the statement.

Crude oil output reached 216 million barrels in the first three months, up 3.3 percent year-on-year, while natural gas output increased 18 percent to 484.7 billion cubic feet.

The company processed 217 million barrels of crude, up 7.4 percent from a year earlier. It sold 21.85 million tons of refined oil products within China, up 18.5 percent.

Gasoline production was up 17.2 percent, with diesel up 4.4 percent and kerosene up 20 percent. Ethylene output climbed 9.2 percent.

Listed in Hong Kong and Shanghai, PetroChina is the listed subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China's largest oil and gas producer. It has 18,406 service stations.

PetroChina shares were down 4.26 percent to 16.84 yuan in Shanghai on Monday ahead of the earnings report. Shares of Sinopec fell 4.38 percent to 11.34 yuan.

(Xinhua News Agency April 29, 2008)