PetroChina was the first publicly traded corporation to reach a $1 trillion market capitalization in 2007.
On its first trading day in Shanghai in November 2007, PetroChina’s shares surged and briefly gave the company a market value above $1 trillion. The price later fell substantially, illustrating why market-cap records based on a short-lived trading peak can differ from longer-term rankings.
PetroChina is the listed arm of China National Petroleum Corporation, one of China’s major state-owned energy groups. Its activities include exploration, production, refining, marketing, and natural-gas operations.
The record is sometimes overlooked because Apple later became the first company widely recognized for sustaining a $1 trillion valuation in the modern technology era. PetroChina’s 2007 figure was also affected by the difference between its mainland-listed shares and its lower-priced Hong Kong-listed shares, a structure that complicated comparisons.