PetroChina became the world's largest company by market value on Monday, worth about one trillion dollars or double the value of ExxonMobil, as its share price nearly tripled on its debut in mainland China.
The milestone underlined the ongoing boom on Chinese markets, which have been flooded with ready cash brought by hungry investors who have disregarded warnings that the China bubble is destined to burst eventually.
Asia's top oil and gas producer already traded in Hong Kong and New York, but PetroChina's new shares made their debut Monday on the Shanghai bourse after the largest initial public offering ever on the Chinese mainland.
The shares, priced at 16.70 yuan for the IPO, touched a high of 48.62 yuan (6.50 dollars) shortly after the market's opening, an increase of 191 percent that valued the firm at about 600 billion dollars more than US oil giant ExxonMobil.
Its shares closed at 43.96 yuan - still up 163 percent, but in Hong Kong a broader market slide left PetroChina down 1.60 Hong Kong dollars (2.06 US dollars) or 8.16 percent at 18.00. Despite the massive surge in PetroChina shares on Monday, the Chinese state will maintain a firm hand in the company, controlling an 86 percent stake via parent China National Petroleum Corporation.
Regulators have encouraged strong Chinese firms to list on home markets in the hope they can improve the quality of listed companies and deflate stock prices which have risen too fast. The IPO of PetroChina, which raised nearly nine billion dollars in its sale of four billion shares, is the world's biggest this year and the largest in mainland China's history.