China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, also known as Sinopec, has said it is co-operating with Hong Kong authorities in an anti-graft probe, media reports said.
The state-owned company would not tolerate any illegal or corrupt conduct, it said in a statement made through a public relations agency to Bloomberg News. It added that operations were not affected and it considered the inquiries to relate to the “individual conduct” of unspecified staff, according to the statement.
Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption had questioned two company executives of the conglomerate’s SAR-based subsidiary Sinopec (Hong Kong) Limited, Apple Daily reported on Thursday. The report did not say when the two were questioned.
The inquiry relates to kick-backs over petrol stations in Kowloon, the report said. Sinopec runs 42 filling stations in the city, according to its website.
The revelation comes at a sensitive time for the oil and gas conglomerate after China’s central leadership had briefed top-level officials on findings in the corruption case centred on former security tsar Zhou Yongkang, who was a leading figure in the industry in the 1990s.
The share price of Sinopec’s Hong Kong-listed subsidiary has fallen 2.4 per cent since the beginning of the year and 11.8 per cent since an eight-month peak in November.