China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., Asia’s biggest refiner, reported a 15% decline in first quarter profit.
Rising exploration costs and tumbling crude pricing were credited for the curbed earnings.
Net income fell to 14.12 billion yuan ($2.26 billion) from 16.7 billion yuan in the same time period a year ago.
The refiner, known as Sinopec, is pushing for greater market control of allocating resources by offering as much as 30% stake in its marketing divisions to investors.
It also aims to produce at least 10 billion cubic meters of shale gas from its Fuling project in southwest China’s Chongqing by 2017.
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