China oil majors tighten investment while doling out record dividends

HONG KONG -- China's state-owned oil majors are tightening up on capital investment while making plans to hand out record dividends, under mounting central government pressure to focus more on stock market performance and shareholder returns.

Sinopec, PetroChina and CNOOC -- the respective core listed units of China Petrochemical Corp. (Sinopec Group), China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) and China National Offshore Oil Corp. (also abbreviated as CNOOC) -- all signaled this approach while announcing their latest interim results this week.