CNPC profit soars in first half

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) announced its first half profit has reached US$11 billion, up US$145 million by last year, Xinhua reported (in Chinese). The sales revenue increased more than 20% to US$51.8 billion but operation profit decreased 5.3% to US$14.4 billion. The HR cost of the energy giants also rised to US$3 billion from US$2.2 billion last year with a increment of  32%, this is mainly attribute to salary increase but also due to the expansion of its business scale, said CNPC.