Oct 30th, Guolonghui | UBS research report indicates that PetroChina's third quarter net profit declined by 5.3% year-on-year, but increased by 2.3% quarter-on-quarter to 43.9 billion yuan, better than the bank's expectations. The main reasons identified are threefold: first, with the drop in international oil prices, the domestic natural gas prices rose year-on-year, offsetting the impact of the oil price drop on the upstream business. Second, natural gas sales volume in the first nine months of this year increased by 8.6% year-on-year, and third, despite the pressure on the fundamentals of refining and chemical industry, both sectors still achieved positive operating profits. The bank pointed out that the fourth quarter is the peak season for natural gas, and business is expected to continue to grow in terms of sales volume and prices. As for the refining and chemical business, the company's crude oil processing volume in the first nine months decreased by 1% year-on-year, while the total sales volume of gasoline and diesel decreased by 4.6% year-on-year, and the profitability of the chemical industry also weakened. The bank expects that with the stimulus policies in place, the demand for refined oil products in the fourth quarter will slightly improve, forecasting Brent crude oil prices to be $75 per barrel by the end of the season. The bank also noted that if oil prices remain stable, the impact of inventory losses on the refining sector may be slightly lighter than in the third quarter. Based on the better-than-expected performance of the group in the third quarter, the bank has raised its profit forecast for PetroChina from this year to 2026 by 1% to 2%, maintaining a target price of 9.7 Hong Kong dollars and a 'buy' rating unchanged.