The state-owned company said on Monday that it would pay 5.979 billion yuan ($839 million) to its parent company China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to acquire 100 percent of the shares in CNPC Electric Energy, which is engaged in power generation, supply and distribution, heat supply, and the design and construction of energy projects.
“This acquisition is expected to advance PetroChina’s energy transition and green development efforts and improve the competitiveness of our new energy business,” said Huang Yongzhang, President and CEO of PetroChina, in Hong Kong on Wednesday. “PetroChina’s wind and solar energy businesses are developing rapidly.”
PetroChina plans to build a platform for buying and selling electricity and coordinate it with its existing renewable energy production and consumption businesses, Huang said.
China’s largest oil and gas producer sold less of its refineries’ output. Sales volumes of gasoline, kerosene and diesel fell by two percent to 79.05 million tons in the first six months of the year. The company’s net profit rose 3.9 percent to 88.61 billion yuan, due to a five percent increase in revenue to 1.55 trillion yuan.
Oil consumption in China’s transportation sector will peak next year “at the latest” as the rapid spread of electric vehicles curbs crude oil consumption. This means that annual nationwide demand for oil is on track to peak at 780 to 800 million tons before 2030, the CNPC research institute said in April.
Given the prospect of falling oil consumption and the global promotion of clean energy, PetroChina is also investing in solar and wind energy projects in Xinjiang and Qinghai. The company’s energy production from wind and solar power plants more than doubled year-on-year to 2,170 gigawatt hours (GWh) in the first half of 2024. External power supply increased 3.5 times to 950 GWh in the first half of the year.
The acquisition of CNPC Electric Energy will help further leverage synergies between the renewable energy and power businesses, Huang said on Wednesday.
According to PetroChina, the company aims to increase the share of renewable energy in its total production from about 7 percent this year to 30 percent by 2035 and to 50 percent by 2050.
