Guokai Securities: Maintain China Petroleum's "buy" rating, continuous dividends highlight the investment value of central enterprises.

Guohai Securities research report pointed out that China Petroleum achieved a net profit attributable to the parent company of 126.3 billion yuan in the first three quarters before 2025, a decrease of 4.9% year-on-year; among them, the net profit attributable to the parent company in 2025Q3 was 42.3 billion yuan, a decrease of 3.9% year-on-year, and an increase of 13.7% quarter-on-quarter. Natural gas performed well, with a 14% increase in performance quarter-on-quarter in Q3. The operating profit of the natural gas sales business reached 12.7 billion yuan, an increase of 7.5 billion yuan quarter-on-quarter. On the one hand, it continued to increase marketing efforts, with a 3.1% increase in natural gas sales volume quarter-on-quarter. On the other hand, the company continued to optimize the structure of the resource pool and strive to control comprehensive procurement costs. The annual capital expenditure budget for 2025 is 262.2 billion yuan, of which the capital expenditures of the oil and gas and new energy divisions are expected to be 210 billion yuan. It will continue to focus on the scale and efficiency exploration and development of key basins such as Songliao, Ordos, Junggar, and Tarim domestically, increase the development efforts of unconventional resources such as shale gas and shale oil, and promote new energy projects such as clean electricity, geothermal, and CCUS. As a leading company in the domestic oil and gas industry, the business resilience is evident, continuous dividends demonstrate the value of state-owned enterprise investment, and the "buy" rating is maintained.