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SASAC to continue SOE fuel deal probe

By Ma Zhenhuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-10 10:08

The State supervisory agency has said that it would continue its investigation into the fuel oil derivative contracts although they are turning a profit for the State-owned airlines because of rising crude prices.

Beijing-based Caijing Magazine yesterday quoted an official of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) as saying: "As a supervising body, we have the responsibility to check on the compliance of these contracts." The official added that the investigation would focus on the legitimacy of these derivative deals irrespective of gains or losses.

Gains from these contracts are known to have greatly boosted the profits of the nation's two major airlines, Air China and China Eastern. Both the carriers had posted more than 100-percent increase in third-quarter profit from a year earlier.

China Eastern reported a net yield of 154 million yuan($22.56 million) in unrealized profits, while Air China posted unrealized profits of 554 million yuan from the deals they signed with international investment institutions.

However, analysts still remain cautious of the actual profitability of these deals, citing unforeseeable factors (such as oil prices) within the next two years.

Fan Lei, an aviation analyst with Shenyin & Wanguo Securities Co, told China Daily yesterday that the gains and losses of the hedging contracts signed by the two carriers are being settled on a monthly basis, and hence it is difficult to compute whether these deals will result in real profits when the deals expire in 2011.

"Overall, we didn't quite look up to the profitability of these deals," he said. "We will have to wait until 2011 to judge the amount of the gross losses (or gains) generated."

Chen Zhipeng, an analyst at Haitong Securities, said yesterday that as the government restricted SOEs to invest in the long-term futures trading, it's natural for them to sign these financial derivative deals for investment and hedging against future risks.

"It's hard to get the detailed disclosure of the actual profitability of these deals, as they were signed by the SOEs and investment institutions independently," said Chen.

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Chen said the gains and losses from such deals should not be taken into account when judging the actual profitability of these airliners as "it's hard to tell the actual value of these deals and there are far too many factors (such as oil prices) to consider".

Crude oil for December delivery rose as much as $1.02, or 1.3 percent, to $78.45 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday, recouping some of the previous session's near 3-percent losses, amid concerns that a powerful hurricane charging toward the Gulf of Mexico would threaten oil and gas supplies.

The SASAC announced in September that it required SOEs to scrutinize hedging deals more closely, after China Eastern and Air China posted a book loss of 6.4 billion yuan and 7.47 billion yuan respectively in fuel hedging bets last year.