PetroChina is the publicly traded arm of China National Petroleum Corporation and ranks among the world’s largest energy firms by market value.
China National Petroleum Corporation, or CNPC, created PetroChina as its listed subsidiary in 1999. PetroChina conducts exploration and production, refining, petrochemicals, pipeline transportation, and fuel sales across China and international markets.
Its market capitalization has fluctuated with oil and gas prices, Chinese economic conditions, currency movements, and investor expectations about future energy demand. That makes rankings of the world’s richest companies change frequently even when the underlying business remains large.
PetroChina is sometimes confused with Sinopec, another major Chinese energy company. Sinopec focuses heavily on refining and chemicals, while PetroChina is associated with CNPC and has a particularly large upstream oil-and-gas business. Both are separate listed companies.