In the first half of 2020, China’s state-run company Norinco's Huajin Chemical unit posted a sizable loss due to the coronavirus pandemic but it has increased output of polymer products to meet medical demand during the pandemic.
Huajin made a CNY669 million (USD96 million) loss, down from the profit of CNY599 million (USD86.3 million) in the same period a year ago. Revenue slumped by 29.5% on a yearly basis to CNY13.3 billion (USD1.9 billion). The refining and petrochemical sector posted a nosedive by 33.2% to CNY8.8 billion (USD1.26 billion).
From polyolefins, revenue dipped by 20.8% to CNY2 billion (USD288 million) and the gross margins from the output were 16.3%, significantly beyond the oil products’ average margin.
The results are in line with last month’s profit warning that the firm issued.
During the peak of the coronavirus outbreak in China, the company cut refinery throughput twice. After the epidemic eased, it ramped up rates swiftly. In the first six months of the year, the refining and ethylene units operated at an average of 90.1% and 103.3% of capacity, respectively.
Huajin operates a 120,000 bpd refinery and 500,000 tpa ethylene cracker at Panjin in the northeastern province of Liaoning. It also produces 1mn tpa of asphalt, 900,000 tpa of base oil and 1.3mn tpa urea from its operations in Liaoning and the northwest Chinese region of Xinjiang.
