PetroChina Co Ltd, China's largest oil refiner, was today added to the Shanghai Stock Exchange series indices and the China Securities Index series indices, including the CSI300 index.

As of last Friday's close, PetroChina shares had shrunken almost 25 percent to 38.32 yuan from an opening price of 48.6 yuan on November 5, when Asia's most profitable company was listed in the Shanghai bourse.

Last Friday, PetroChina shares had a total market value of 6.14 trillion yuan, accounting for 23.2 percent of the total market value of all shares listed in Shanghai. PetroChina has left the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) far behind. Previously the heaviest weight in Shanghai, ICBC shares on Friday accounted for only 7.93 percent of the total market value of the Shanghai exchange.

Calculated on the closing price of the Shanghai Composite Index on November 16, or 5,316 points, PetroChina took up 1,097 points. In other words, if PetroChina's share price changes by 1 percent, the benchmark Shanghai index will move 10.97 points.

Calculated on the closing price of the CSI300 index on Friday of 5,007 points, PetroChina weighted 111 points. That means if PetroChina share price changes by 1 percent, the CSI300 index will move 1.11 points.

Based on PetroChina's closing price of 38.82 yuan last Friday, a price change of 0.01 yuan would cause the Shanghai Composite Index to lose 0.31 points. Supposing PetroChina had been included in the index on Friday, its gain of 0.91 yuan that day would have led the index to go up 28.21 points.

(China Daily November 19, 2007)