US giant Exxon Mobil has lost its crown as the world's biggest listed producer of oil to PetroChina, figures suggest.
The Chinese firm said it produced 886.1 million barrels of oil last year - the equivalent of 2.43 million barrels a day. In January, Exxon said it produced 2.3 million barrels a day.
Exxon's production fell in 2011 by 5%, while PetroChina's rose 3.3%.
Exxon remains the more valuable firm, with a marketcapitalisation of $400bn (£250bn) against PetroChina's $280bn.
It also remains more profitable. Exxon made a net profit in the final three months of last year of $9.4bn.
According to figures from the Reuters news agency, state-owned PetroChina made $4.7bn over the same period.
Production at Exxon has been falling as older fields start to run short of oil. Some of the company's overseas contracts also limit the amount of oil it can produce. For these reasons, Exxon has said it expects production to fall again this year.
In contrast, PetroChina expects production to increase during 2012.
Analysts said the news that the Chinese company had overtaken Exxon was not surprising, given the more competitive nature of the US oil market.
"If you look at total oil production, the US is still quite a long way [ahead] and produces twice as much as China does," said Julian Jessop, commodities analyst at Capital Economics.
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