PetroChina Co., the country’s biggest oil and gas producer, posted its worst quarterly profit as a plunge in crude prices punished revenue. The company, faced with a “complicated and grim operating environment,” posted net income of 5.2 billion yuan ($818 million), or 0.03 yuan a share, compared with 27.9 billion yuan, or 0.15 yuan, a year earlier, it said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Thursday. That compared with the 10.9 billion yuan average of four analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg and the lowest earnings since 2007, when Bloomberg started compiling quarterly data on the company. “It’s a pretty weak performance across all segments,” Neil Beveridge, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., said by phone from Hong Kong. “PetroChina is struggling in the low crude environment and needs to find a way to stop the bleeding.” The Beijing-based company relies on oil and […]