PetroChina shares rise on pipeline sales plans

PetroChina Co said it will sell pipeline assets, a move to further reform State-owned Chinese enterprises and usher market forces into the world's second-largest economy, analysts said.

The government is also fighting high-level corruption.

PetroChina, the country's biggest pipeline network operator, said on Monday its First and Second West-East Gas Pipelines will be transferred to a new subsidiary, PetroChina Eastern Pipelines Co.

All assets of PetroChina Eastern Pipelines - worth 82 billion yuan ($13.1 billion) - will then be sold by public tender on an assets exchange on the Chinese mainland. The subsidiary will be established in China's commercial hub in Shanghai, PetroChina said. Its network delivers natural gas to China's eastern cities from central Asia and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

The company's shares rose. PetroChina closed up 0.79 percent at 7.65 yuan in Shanghai and finished 2.78 percent higher at HK$9.24 ($1.19) in Hong Kong on Tuesday.

The move is in accordance with the central government's natural gas industry reform plan of separating the pipeline business from oil and gas companies, Wang Ruiqi, senior analyst with the energy information consultancy ICIS C1 Energy, said.

"The government is trying to cut down size of the giants by spinning off their assets in order to weaken the chain of corruption," she said.

PetroChina owns about 70 percent of the country's crude pipelines and up to 90 percent of the natural gas pipelines.

The National Energy Administration published a document in February that said operators of oil and gas pipelines should open their facilities to third parties in the market and create fair industry development.

"To break the monopoly will bring more investors and openness in the market, which will raise operational efficiency in future and thus benefit the whole gas industry," said Wang.

China's urbanization is creating huge demand for natural gas. The country is the world's third-biggest user of the fuel. Consumption rose 13.9 percent to 167.6 billion cubic meters in 2013, according to the report from the China National Petroleum Corp's Economics and Technology Research Institute.

Duan Zhaofang, a natural gas expert with CNPCETRI, estimated gas consumption in 2014 will reach 186 billion cu m, an 11 percent increase. That requires not only more output from upstream exploration, but also increasing investments in pipelines to deliver gas to households, Wang said.

"Such huge investment in pipeline construction needs diversified investors," she said.

Public figures show the construction cost of the First West-East Gas Pipeline was 140 billion yuan and the second pipeline 150 billion yuan.

China is making great efforts to fight corruption and several senior officials from PetroChina have been caught in the dragnet. Wang said scaling down the company will help prevent corruption.

PetroChina's Chairman Zhou Jiping said in April the company will open up six sectors to social and private hands: pipeline construction; nonproducing reserves; unconventional oil and gas development; refining; overseas business; and natural gas utilization.

The aim is to boost the competitiveness and influence of State-owned enterprises.

dujuan@chinadaily.com.cn