PetroChina, the nation's largest oil producer, has set the price range of
its A-share Initial Public Offering (IPO) at 15 to 16.7 yuan per share, the
company announced yesterday.
If its IPO price is fixed at 16.7 yuan per share, the oil giant would be able
to raise a record-breaking 66.8 billion yuan (about US$8.9 billion) from its
imminent Shanghai listing, surpassing the 66.58 billion yuan achieved by China
Shenhua Energy Company, the country's largest coal producer, earlier this month.
The company has been handed the green light from the country's securities
watchdog to issue up to four billion A shares on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Experts predicted PetroChina would finally issue the shares at the high end
of the price range, a practice followed by recently returning red-chips such as
China COSCO Holdings, China Construction Bank and Shenhua.
The price range was decided after the company staged a three-day consultation
from Oct. 22 to 24.
According to the company's prospectus, it will use 6.84 billion yuan and 5.93
billion yuan respectively to boost production capacity at its Changqing and
Daqing oil fields. A total of 1.5 billion yuan will be used to build production
facilities at Jidongfield, the country's largest.
It also plans to invest 17.5 billion yuan to upgrade its Dushanzi oil
refinery and ethylene facilities and six billion yuanin expanding an ethylene
plant in Daqing, in northeast China.
PetroChina is the first of the country's three petrochemical giants including
Sinopec and the China National Offshore Oil Corp.(CNOOC) to get listed on
overseas stock market.
PetroChina began trading in Hong Kong and its American Depository Receipts
were listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2000.
Citic Securities Co., UBS Securities Co. and China International Capital
Corp. are the main underwriters of the issue.
