July 15 (Bloomberg) -- PetroChina Co., the nation's biggest oil producer, said crude oil output rose 2.1 percent to 396.6 million barrels in the first six months of the year.

PetroChina sold crude oil for an average $43.42 a barrel, against $29.76 a year earlier, an increase of 45.9 percent, the Beijing-based company said in a statement on its Web site today. The company processed 378.9 million barrels of oil into products such as gasoline and diesel, up 7.4 percent from a year earlier.

Last month PetroChina agreed to pay 20.7 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) for a stake in parent China National Petroleum Corp.'s fields in nine countries to counter stalling domestic output and meet demand. China's economy has expanded an average of 8.7 percent a year over the past decade, more than doubling oil consumption. The nation's oil use climbed 15.8 percent last year to 308.6 million metric tons, according to BP Plc.

Natural gas sales rose 23.4 percent to 506.3 billion cubic feet from January through June, PetroChina said. It sold the gas at $1.95 per thousand cubic feet, compared with $2.01 per thousand cubic feet a year earlier.

PetroChina produced the equivalent of 481 million barrels of oil and gas during the period, an increase of 5.3 percent from a year earlier.

In the second quarter, PetroChina produced 196.7 million barrels of crude oil and sold 245.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas, the statement said.

PetroChina produced the equivalent of 237.6 million barrels of oil and gas in the second quarter and processed 187.4 million barrels of crude oil into fuels, the statement said.

Gasoline, Diesel

Gasoline production in the first-half rose 2.3 percent to 10.7 million metric tons. PetroChina sold the fuel for $386.55 a ton, 18.4 percent higher than a year earlier, the statement said.

Diesel production rose 11.9 percent to 21.6 million tons, and PetroChina sold the fuel at $364.45 a ton, an increase of 14.6 percent.

Kerosene output over the six-month period fell 3.7 percent to 956,000 tons. The company sold the fuel at $410.79 a ton, compared with $320.42 a year earlier, the statement said.

PetroChina's gasoline output was 5.25 million tons in the second quarter, diesel production 10.94 million tons and kerosene output 480,000 tons.

The company's ethylene production rose 2 percent in the first six months to 941,000 tons, the statement said. Second- quarter production of the chemical, a raw material used to make plastics, was 464,000 tons.

To contact the reporter on this story: Wing-Gar Cheng in Beijing at wgcheng@bloomberg.net; Loretta Ng in Hong Kong at lng13@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 14, 2005 21:27 EDT