China's Sinopec reports first-half crude throughput up only 0.1%

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec), Asia's largest refiner, on Friday reported first-half crude throughput little changed year on year.

The state refining giant processed 126.69 million metric tons of crude oil, about 5.08 million barrels per day (bpd), up 0.1% from the same period last year, it said in a stock market filing.

That compared with 1.7% growth in the first quarter, indicating a slowdown in processing in the second quarter as higher crude prices and tepid domestic fuel demand weighed.

While the group's gasoline and aviation fuel output expanded 6.6% and 15.2% year on year respectively, diesel production fell 8.8%, reflecting poor demand for the main transportation and industrial fuel in a sluggish economy.

Total domestic refined fuel sales slipped 2.5% year on year to 90.14 million tons, including 56.96 million tons of retail sales that were down 4.7%, the refiner added.

Sinopec earlier reported a 0.6% annual growth in its crude oil output for the period and natural gas output up 6%.

(Reporting by Chen Aizhu; Editing by David Goodman)

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