Incidents:

For the six months ended June 30, 2024, the company achieved operating income of HK$52.08 billion, an increase of 7.7% over the previous year. Net profit attributable to shareholders was HK$3.457 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 2.5%. After excluding the one-time revenue impact of Chongqing Gas's merger in the first half of the year, the company's core profit was HK$3.46 billion, up 21.2% year on year; the company's operating cash flow for the first half of the year was HK$4.25 billion, and the company proposed an interim dividend of HK$25 per share (first half of 2023: HK$10 per share).

Review opinions:

Total gas sales increased 5.3% year-on-year in the first half of the year, and the gross sales gap continued to be fixed:

In the first half of the year, the company's total gas sales volume was 20.9 billion cubic meters, with a year-on-year increase of 5.3%, of which industrial gas volume increased by 3.7%, commercial gas volume increased by 8.1%, and residential gas volume increased by 7.0%; the annual contract volume increased by 0.75 billion parties during the period, the gas contract coverage rate for the new year increased to 99.7%, the total gas volume increased by 30% year-on-year, and added more than 0.2 billion square meters of unconventional resources. The company's diversified gas source structure was beneficial to further optimize upstream procurement costs in the first half of the year; in the first half of the year, the company's sales volume increased further. The gas gross margin was 0.54 yuan/square meter, an increase of 4 points/square meter over the previous year. The company's annual sales guideline was 0.53 to 0.54 yuan/square meter.

It is expected that as the good gas prices for residents in all provinces continue to be implemented, the company's gas sales gap is expected to continue to recover.

High growth in integrated services and integrated businesses:

In the first half of the year, due to a decrease in the number of new users, the company's connectivity segment profit was HK$1.124 billion, down 29.4% year on year; in the first half of the year, the company's integrated services achieved revenue of HK$1.77 billion, an increase of 20% year over year, achieving operating profit of HK$0.76 billion, up 22.1% year on year. In terms of integrated energy business, 27 new distributed photovoltaic projects were signed during the period, 18 new projects were newly developed, 28 new distributed energy projects were newly signed, 31 new distributed energy projects were put into operation, and 211 were developed. The energy sales volume was 1.49 billion kilowatt-hours, an increase of 54.6% over the previous year, achieving a gross comprehensive energy profit of HK$0.16 billion, an increase of 84.3% over the previous year. The company's high growth in integrated energy and integrated services is beneficial to offset the impact of declining connectivity business performance on overall performance.