PetroChina Plans ‘Large Scale’ Acquisitions to Expand Output

PetroChina Co., surpassing Exxon Mobil Corp. and OAO Rosneft as the world’s biggest publicly traded crude producer last year, plans to buy additional assets to ramp up output and expand into overseas markets.

“We will buy assets on a large scale,” Chairman Jiang Jiemin told reporters in Hong Kong yesterday. “Our focus is on the Chinese market, but in the long term, we will expand outside China,” he said, after the Beijing-based company posted fourth-quarter profit that missed estimates because of losses from selling fuels at prices controlled by the government.