Three more senior oil executives investigated for discipline violations

Another three senior executives with the State-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) are being investigated for suspected "serious discipline violations," officials said Tuesday.

The three executives include Li Hualin, a CNPC deputy general manager, Ran Xinquan, vice president of PetroChina Co Ltd, and Wang Daofu, chief geologist of PetroChina, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) said.

This came one day after the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced that it is probing Wang Yongchun, another CNPC deputy general manager.

The board of directors of PetroChina said in a statement Tuesday that the company was notified of the investigations on Monday, and all three executives involved had resigned due to "personal reasons," which took effect on Monday.

"As a board member, Ran Xinquan confirmed with the board that there are no other issues regarding the resignations that need to be disclosed to shareholders," read the statement.

Calls from the Global Times to the press officers of both CNPC and PetroChina went unanswered as of press time. SASAC did not disclose any details on the causes behind the probes.

However, PetroChina said the investigations "won't influence the company's normal operations," and that it would make timely disclosures based on the requests from the supervisory authorities.

Wang and Li also served as general managers of the Heilongjiang-based Daqing Oilfield and the Shaanxi-based Changqing Oilfield, respectively, two of the country's most profitable oil fields.

PetroChina said Thursday that the publicly traded company has seen a net profit of 65.52 billion yuan ($10.70 billion) in the first half of the year.

Wang Yongchun is reportedly the second alternate member of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee to be probed after the 18th National Congress of the CPC, following Li Chuncheng, former deputy chief of the CPC Sichuan provincial committee.