PETROCHINA Co., the country’s top oil and gas producer which also owns refineries, posted Friday a 15 percent rise in second-quarter profit, partly due to higher upstream earnings and improved refining margins.

    Second-quarter net profit rose to 33.9 billion yuan (US$5.5 billion) in the April-June period from 29.5 billion yuan a year earlier, according to calculations based on PetroChina’s first-half results. That compares with an average forecast of 33.2 billion yuan by six analysts.

    PetroChina said it expected oversupply to persist in the domestic oil product market in the second half of the year and forecast oil prices would be volatile.

    “The mild recovery of the global economy will remain highly uncertain in the second half of 2014 and the global oil price is still likely to fluctuate at high levels,” chairman Zhou Jiping said in an earnings statement.

    “It is expected that the domestic economy will continue to develop at a reasonable pace, while downward pressure on the economy still exists.”

    The oil giant said first-half capital spending fell 15.8 percent on the year to 91.1 billion yuan. (SD-Agencies)