BEIJING, March 31, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (HKG: 0386, "Sinopec" or "the Company") hosted its 2021 annual performance conference on March 28 in Beijing via webinar. Per International Financial Reporting Standards, Sinopec's 2021 turnover and other operating income was CNY2.74 trillion (USD431.50billion), with profit attributable to shareholders of the company reaching CNY71.975 billion (USD11.33 billion), a 115.2 percent growth year-on-year. This has been Sinopec's best operating performance in the past decade.

A dividend of CNY0.47 per share was distributed throughout the year, with a dividend payout ratio of 80 percent. Based on the weighted average share price in 2021, the dividend yield of A shares and H shares reached 10.8 percent and 14.3 percent, respectively.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and a complex macroenvironment, Sinopec focused on advancing high-quality production and operations, transformative development, technological innovation, management reform, risk prevention and control among other aspects in 2021 to achieve a solid start in line with China's "14th Five-Year Plan." Overall, Sinopec's various business sectors have been growing positively, with remarkable achievements in:

• Increasing upstream oil and gas reserves;
• Expanding refining scale and competitive advantages;
• Continuous increase of the sales and operation scale of refined oil;
• Giving full play to leading with innovative and technological support.

In the meantime, Sinopec also focused on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) development with the board of directors coming from more diverse backgrounds and the Company is actively responding to climate change challenges, vigorously saving energy and reducing pollution and carbon emissions, as well as supporting the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

Mr. Ma Yongsheng, president of Sinopec noted, Sinopec will give full play to its advantages in the integration of marketing, brand, technology and talent to unswervingly move towards the goal of becoming a world-leading clean energy and chemical company, creating greater value for shareholders and society.

"Looking to the future, Sinopec will actively and constructively embrace energy transformation and the transformation of the industry as a whole, extensively implementing a world-leading development strategy and continuously optimizing the 14th Five-Year Plan and long-term 2035 goal to achieve high-quality, sustainable development," said Ma.

Sinopec has laid out five key focuses in implementing its new development strategy and strives to:

• Improve corporate governance: Sinopec will promote the integration of risk control, internal control and compliance management to strictly control risks in terms of safety, environmental protection, operation management and more. Sinopec will also further integrate ESG with production, operation and development to improve corporate governance efficiency.
• Execute an innovation-driven development strategy: Sinopec will create a cradle for original technologies to promote the development and application of advanced technologies for oil and gas resources, emphasize technological breakthroughs in oil refining, high-end chemicals and new materials, modern coal chemicals, new energy and more, and strengthen the development of the industry's key technologies, common technologies and cutting-edge technologies.
• Enhance energy supply capacity: Sinopec is devoting greater efforts in the exploration and development of oil and gas, aiming to achieve major breakthroughs and discoveries of shale oil and gas, promote the coordinated development of natural gas production, supply, storage and sales, maintain domestic oil and gas reserves with steady growth in production, and actively and steadily lay out new energy businesses such as hydrogen energy. It will strengthen the support capability of international trade, improve global resource allocation capacity and explore the establishing a multi-energy complementary energy supply system.
• Promote the upgrade of refining and chemical businesses: Sinopec aims to optimize oil refining and expand and strengthen chemical engineering, speeding up the progress of "crude-to-chemicals" and "petroleum derivative products" to promote the mid- to high-end development of the chemical business and build a large-scale, integrated and intelligent world-class refining and chemical engineering base.
• Build green and low-carbon competitive advantages: Coordinating the relationship between development and emissions reduction, Sinopec continues the optimization of its industrial and energy use structures, improves energy efficiency to set industry benchmarks. Sinopec has also accelerated the R&D of green, low-carbon technologies using the Sinopec Qilu-Shengli Oilfield CCUS project as the foundation.

For more information, please visit Sinopec.