The company, better known as Sinopec Corp and the world's largest refiner by capacity, plans 240 million tonnes of crude oil throughput (4.8 million barrels per day) for the whole of 2022, executives told an earnings call on Monday.

That means its second-half volumes would be flat versus 120.76 million tonnes in the January-June period.

"With the government's stimulus policy and the restoring of order in the fuel market, we expect China's fuel demand to return to a reasonable level of growth in the second half," said Vice President Ling Yiqun. He did not provide a specific forecast.

Sinopec achieved 40 billion yuan ($5.78 billion) of inventory gains in the first half owing to a surging oil market amid the Ukraine crisis, comprising 29.3 bln yuan in crude oil and 10.7 billion yuan in refined products, Chief Financial Officer Shou Donghua said.

The company has always made efforts to diversify crude oil sourcing to manage costs, including a small share of purchases of Russian oil in the first six months, President Yu Baocai said.

Sinopec on Sunday reported a record interim net profit of $6.3 billion as strong oil and gas prices outweighed weakened domestic fuel sales.

($1 = 6.9115 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Aizhu Chen and Muyu Xu in Singapore; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Edmund Klamann)