Top Asian refiner Sinopec Corp.'s net profit fell 5.6% in the first nine months of 2022, a company filing showed on Oct. 28, dragged down by tepid domestic fuel demand and strong global oil prices.

Net income totaled 56.66 billion yuan ($7.81 billion) for the January-September period. Revenue rose 23% to 2.45 trillion yuan.

That translates into net earnings for the third quarter of 13.13 billion yuan, according to a Reuters calculation based on company filings on Oct. 28, down from 20.67 billion yuan in the same period last year and the lowest third-quarter profit since 2019.

Sinopec's refinery crude throughput rebounded in the third quarter from the prior three months, at 59.31 million tonnes, or 4.71 MMbbl/d.

However, it was still 8% lower than the same period a year earlier, as China's zero-COVID policy dampened fuel demand and an incident at Sinopec's Shanghai refinery led to a three month-long outage at the 320,000 bbl/d plant.

Refined oil product sales at home totaled 43.53 million tonnes, up 16% from the previous quarter and around the same level as a year earlier.

"Entering the fourth quarter, we have seen a recovery of fuel demand and we are optimistic about our sales and refining margins," said Chen Yang, deputy head of board secretary, at a conference call on Oct. 28.

Sinopec has received 6.5 million tonnes of refined oil product exports in the recent batch of quota issuance in late September.

When asked if the company plans to fully use the quotas by end-2022, Chen said Sinopec will prioritize domestic fuel supply and optimise an export plan based on the domestic and overseas situation.

In oil and gas output, the firm produced 210.82 MMbbl of crude oil in the first nine months, up 1% year on year. Its natural gas output was at 913.81 Bcf, up 4%.

Company officials also said Sinopec was looking to cut total capital investment and investment in the chemical sector in 2022 due to tighter cash flow and poor performance in the chemicals business.

But a final decision is dependent on an approval from the board of directors.

Sinopec planed 198 billion yuan for 2022's capital investment, and by September it had spent 104 billion yuan.

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