Do EV owners think they can "skip payment"? The money for charging services is still earned by PetroChina.
Behind the surging profits, the sales of gasoline, kerosene and diesel sold by PetroChina in domestic markets have declined amid the growing popularity of new energy. The sales volume dropped year on year, yet revenue and net profit rose instead, which is somewhat "unreasonable" against the conventional rules of business.
In the era of new energy vehicles, many people fail to understand why PetroChina is still enjoying a highly profitable business.
When the question of switching to a fuel vehicle or a new energy vehicle gets a standard answer, the once frequently compared metrics like oil prices, points rewards and car wash coupons are gradually replaced by charging power, peak-valley electricity prices and battery capacity.
I still remember that during Bamei's last business trip, the ride-hailing driver was calculating excitedly in his head: his GAC Aion only needs to be charged once a day, which is far more cost-effective than the old Volkswagen of his peer that has to refuel several times a week. However, PetroChina's financial report came as a big surprise: with new energy vehicles so widely popularized, the leading state-owned oil giant has quietly submitted a highly profitable financial report.
The 2026 Q3 financial report shows that PetroChina's total revenue from Q1 to Q3 reached 2.321064 trillion yuan, up 7% year on year; its attributable net profit reached 155.776 billion yuan, up 21.9% year on year, hitting a record high for the same period in history. Converted to "daily earnings", calculated based on 273 days in the first three quarters, PetroChina makes an average of 570 million yuan in net profit every day.
Behind the surging profits, the sales of gasoline, kerosene and diesel sold by PetroChina in domestic markets have declined amid the growing popularity of new energy. The sales volume dropped year on year, yet revenue and net profit rose instead, which is somewhat "unreasonable" against the conventional rules of business.
With an increasing number of new energy vehicles on the road, why can PetroChina still make such huge profits? What else has it done besides selling oil? Can this success be replicated?
1.
The secret of earning more profits with less oil sales
When discussing PetroChina's performance, most people's first reaction is to look at oil prices. There is no doubt that oil prices have provided a tailwind for PetroChina this year.
In the first three quarters, PetroChina's average crude oil price reached 77.65 US dollars per barrel, compared with 65.55 US dollars per barrel in the same period of last year, the unit price rose by about 18.5% year on year. But this did not stop the overall decline in oil demand. As mentioned earlier, in the first three quarters of 2026, the total sales volume of PetroChina's gasoline, kerosene and diesel decreased by 5.1% year on year, of which gasoline sales fell by 8.8% and diesel sales fell by 6.3%.
With slightly lower sales volume and higher unit price, the two factors should offset each other roughly, so where does PetroChina's over 20% profit growth come from? This comes down to the operation logic of oil enterprises. Although the most common scenario where people see PetroChina is gas stations, it is actually an enterprise integrating resource development, processing, trading and terminal sales.
In plain terms, PetroChina not only keeps exploiting its own oil fields to extract and sell crude oil, but also purchases oil from other suppliers in the market to expand its midstream refining and downstream sales business scale.
In this context, oil price fluctuations no longer produce a one-way impact. Rising raw material prices will trigger simultaneous changes in procurement, inventory and downstream demand, and the forces acting on different business lines may be completely opposite. The Q3 financial report reveals that while PetroChina's domestic sales of gasoline, kerosene and diesel declined year on year in the first three quarters, the operating profit of its oil & gas and new energy division reached 152.023 billion yuan, up 19.7% year on year. Obviously, the reduced sales of refined oil products at the terminal will not hinder the profitability of upstream production, natural gas sales and other businesses.
When oil price fluctuations are deconstructed by the complex revenue distribution structure, profit margin becomes a mirror that reflects how much money these businesses can finally retain.
From 2023 to 2025, PetroChina's operating revenue was about 3.01 trillion yuan, 2.94 trillion yuan and 2.86 trillion yuan respectively, and its attributable net profit was 161.416 billion yuan, 164.684 billion yuan and 157.318 billion yuan respectively. Operating revenue has declined for two consecutive years, yet annual profit has always remained above 150 billion yuan. Obviously, for such an enterprise, there is no inevitable correlation between the size of total revenue and the amount of profit earned.
This contrast has become even more prominent this year. From January to September 2026, PetroChina's gross profit margin rose from 21.18% to 22.28%, and its net sales profit margin increased from 6.53% to 7.41%. That means, the net profit retained for every 100 yuan of revenue has increased from about 6.5 yuan to 7.4 yuan. The figure may not seem significant when viewed alone, but in a revenue pool of over 2 trillion yuan, an increase of less than one percentage point is enough to bring considerable profit growth.
Veteran investor Stobber holds a clear view: "For an enterprise as large as PetroChina, it does not care at all whether car owners refuel a few more times or a few less times. Its performance score is determined by oil prices, the earnings and profit margins of all links in the industrial chain, and many other more complex factors."
2.
The three major state-owned oil companies are still performing well
Facing the same new energy substitution, the profits of all three major state-owned oil companies are rising, but in different ways.
Sinopec's revenue in the first three quarters was about 2.21 trillion yuan, with an attributable net profit of 40.167 billion yuan, up 25.3% year on year. CNOOC's revenue in the first half of the year was 24.266 billion yuan, with an attributable net profit of 85.818 billion yuan, up 16.9% and 23.4% year on year respectively. Adding PetroChina's 155.776 billion yuan, the total combined profit of the three companies exceeds 280 billion yuan. While terminal refined oil sales are declining, the profit statements of all three companies are moving upward, which indicates that the variable of "private car fuel tanks" is no longer a decisive factor in the revenue structure of energy companies.
Looking into the details, the profit sources of the three companies have different focuses.
CNOOC has a high proportion of upstream exploration and development business. When the oil price rises from 65.55 US dollars per barrel to 77.65 US dollars per barrel, the price increase directly translates into profit with the shortest industrial chain. Sinopec has a large refining scale, and the decline in refined oil sales is hedged by its chemical and natural gas businesses. When oil prices went down in 2025, the operating profit of its refining segment even increased by 19.1%. PetroChina takes a middle position, with large scale in upstream business, sound foundation in refining business, and growing momentum in natural gas business, with all three business lines contributing to its profit.
In PetroChina's internal profit distribution, this structural difference becomes even clearer.
The gas station business that ordinary people are most familiar with is called the "sales division" in the financial report. This division recorded an operating profit of 14.5 billion yuan in this financial quarter, the lowest among the four major divisions, which is only 1/10 of the profit of PetroChina's oil & gas and new energy division, and less than half of the profit of the second largest profit source, the natural gas sales division (natural gas sales brought 33.293 billion yuan to PetroChina, up 6.4% year on year). In other words, gas stations are the most visible facade of PetroChina, but not the most profitable source of profit.
If PetroChina's operation logic is divided into two lines: gas stations and the full industrial chain, the former is responsible for gaining public visibility, while the latter is its real competitive advantage. Especially during periods of price volatility, the value of the full industrial chain is more likely to be highlighted.
In 2025, the crude oil price trend was described as a "roller coaster". The price was fluctuating at a high level of 80 US dollars per barrel at the beginning of the year, then was about to fall below the 60 US dollars per barrel mark in the middle of the year, with the maximum annual fluctuation exceeding 30%. According to the financial report, PetroChina's average realized crude oil price last year decreased by 14.2% year on year, and the operating profit of its oil & gas and new energy division decreased by 14.8%.
When the main profit driver is weakened, the second and third largest profit drivers have to step up. Throughout last year, the operating profit of PetroChina's natural gas sales division increased by 12.6%, and the operating profit of its refining business increased by 19.1%. Finally, it achieved a consolidated net profit of 172.021 billion yuan and a net cash flow from operating activities of 412.51 billion yuan, maintaining relatively stable profitability and cash flow generation capacity. In Stobber's words: "When the main business faces setbacks, it is unrealistic to expect other businesses to fully absorb the pressure. It is a victory for other businesses to play a supporting and complementary role."
Although crude oil prices have rebounded this year, the substitution of transportation fuel by electric vehicles will not stop. The International Energy Agency estimates that global electric vehicles replaced about 1.7 million barrels per day of oil demand in 2025, and this figure will reach about 5 million barrels per day by 2030 under the current policy scenario.
Therefore, natural gas and refining businesses have become the growth drivers for PetroChina. Everbright Securities listed the long-term growth potential of the natural gas business as a key observation priority in its latest Q3 financial report review, and the proportion of natural gas business in PetroChina's revenue structure has indeed increased. Calculated based on external transaction revenue, the proportion of natural gas sales in PetroChina's total revenue increased from about 19% in 2024 to about 20.2% in 2025.
In the first three quarters of this year, the profit growth rate of PetroChina's refining, chemical and new materials division is faster than its revenue growth rate, which indicates that the path of "selling a little less oil and selling a little more other products" seems feasible. Enterprises, just like people, follow the principle of "life lies in constant movement". The space, resources and time reserved for these business explorations constitute the operating space of a full industrial chain.
3.
Has PetroChina earned all the profits from the new energy industry?
PetroChina is not only making profits from traditional energy, but also earning profits from the new energy sector by the way.
In October, PetroChina finalized a three-year contract with a total budget of 48 million yuan. The order mainly covers the construction of charging network in Hainan region, which is expected to serve the construction of all charging stations of PetroChina and its holding and participating companies in Hainan.
Considering PetroChina's huge business scale, this order is not large, but the signal it conveys is worth exploring. When a central enterprise that is used to large-scale centralized orders starts to try small orders for trial and error, it often means that a larger business line has completed all the approval procedures and is ready for operation, one of the evidences is that Kunlun Grid Power, PetroChina's in-house charging operation platform, is accelerating its expansion.
The latest data shows that Kunlun Grid Power has deployed more than 6,000 charging stations nationwide, with over 90,000 self-operated charging guns put into operation. Its monthly charging volume in March 2025 just exceeded 100 million kWh, and the figure rose to over 300 million kWh by April this year.
Green transformation is not PetroChina's exclusive ambition. Public data shows that Sinopec currently owns more than 31,000 comprehensive energy service outlets in total, with 14,000 charging and battery swapping facilities already in operation. In August, Hong Kong's first high-speed dedicated charging station converted from a gas station was put into use, operated by Sinopec. It is also the first dedicated high-speed charging station approved by the Hong Kong SAR government and transformed from traditional gas station land.
The reason why PetroChina and Sinopec are pushing forward the transformation so vigorously lies in both performance pressure and external regulatory constraints.
In April, the General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the *Comprehensive Evaluation and Assessment Measures for Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality*, and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission was required to formulate an evaluation and assessment system for central enterprises to implement the dual carbon goals. Indicators such as total carbon emissions, total oil consumption, and the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption are included as control items. Even earlier, five departments including the National Development and Reform Commission had clearly strengthened the requirements of energy conservation and carbon reduction in the performance assessment of central enterprise leaders. In plain terms, the achievement of peak oil consumption is now directly linked to the performance assessment of central enterprise leaders.
This is good news for investors, because the certainty of transformation no longer depends on the vision of a single manager, but is driven forward by both policy and performance pressure.
On the other hand, this also lays the groundwork for competition among oil and gas enterprises.
When the whole industry is rolling out charging guns, how to achieve higher frequency of usage, whether the cost saved from oil fields can be sustained, and whether the new business can make stable profits independently of oil price fluctuations are the problems to be solved in the next step. Fortunately, when facing these problems, we are standing at the same starting line with the rest of the world.
Oil giant Shell had about 73,000 public charging points two years ago, but its charging business still failed to break even. At that time, Shell announced that it would no longer follow the "scale above all else" strategy, and no longer set a target for the number of charging points by 2030. By the end of 2025, Shell's global charging points have increased to nearly 88,000. Its annual report shows that this business is still unprofitable so far. Shell has proven with real capital and practical time that the number of charging stations cannot define success.
Saudi Aramco, ranked No.1 on *Fortune*'s list of top oil companies, took another path. This October, it signed an agreement with oilfield service company NESR, planning to extract battery-grade lithium carbonate from underground brine and build a demonstration project with an annual output of 2,000 tons, which is scheduled to be put into operation by the end of 2027.
Similar to the situation of PetroChina's Hainan charging stations, this project is small in scale and still pending commercial verification, but the direction is clear: Oil enterprises do not necessarily have to compete with roadside charging operators for car owners. They can also enter the material supply chain of new energy vehicles with their underground resources and exploitation technologies.
From this perspective, there is no one-size-fits-all answer for the second growth curve of oil companies. What each company can bring into the new track is exactly the gas stations, underground resources and engineering capabilities accumulated in the past.
Therefore, PetroChina's Q3 financial report can answer the question of "why it is still making huge profits when there are more and more electric vehicles": oil prices, upstream resources and multi-segment operation can still support its current profit level. But the next question has not been answered by the whole industry: oil sales will never return to its past glory. Who can transform old assets into new businesses and make them generate independent profits?
The future ranking of oil giants will not only depend on how much oil is left underground, but also depend on how much new market share they can seize from the new energy track.