Sinopec reported a 76-percent drop in its latest quarterly profit for October-December 2018, which is the lowest since at least the third quarter of 2016, Reuters reports , citing the company. However, the bad news was not a result of the company’s normal operations but of derivatives trading losses incurred by its trading arm Unipec. The division booked net losses of US$690 million (4.65 billion yuan) in the fourth quarter of last year on bad oil hedging bets. This pressed the parent company’s net result to US$461.57 million (3.1 billion yuan) despite a 33-percent increase in revenues during the three-month period, as calculated by Reuters. In refining specifically, China’s top refiner reported even worse profit figures, according to Bloomberg calculations . This fell by as much as 90 percent in the fourth quarter For the full year, however, things looked much better in the profit department, with Sinopec reporting […]