Total revenue at ENN, which operates the country's first major privately-owned regasification terminal, was 54.1 billion yuan ($7.43 billion) versus 58.3 billion yuan ($8.01 billion) in the same period last year, the company said in a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Total gas sales volumes fell by 6.9% to 12.2 billion cubic metres (bcm), which it attributed to high gas prices and subdued domestic demand, owing to a gloomy macroeconomic picture.

Liquefied natural gas prices (LNG) have fallen by around 69% between the end of June this year and the same point last year, having spiked in the immediate aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

However, the domestic cost of imported gas remained high due to delayed adjustments in pricing in long-term supply agreements, ENN said.

Industrial usage was a particular weak spot, ENN said, with the new installed daily capacity for industrial customers falling by 11.8% against last year.

The fall in sales volumes marks the acceleration of a trend for 2022 as a whole, during which the company had seen total gas sales volumes slip by 1.2% on the previous year as COVID-19 lockdowns depressed domestic demand, according to its 2022 annual results.

However, the group's construction and installation business was a bright spot, the filing said, supporting the group's gross profit margin rise by 1.4 percentage points on last year.

Profit attributable to shareholders increased 7.3% to 3.33 billion yuan ($457.53 million).

Profit margins later this year for distributors like ENN are expected to benefit from recent reforms to residential gas prices, analysts say.

Since June, more than 30 Chinese cities and several provinces have taken steps to liberalise residential natural gas pricing, allowing prices to rise and enabling distributors to more evenly pass on procurement costs to households.

($1 = 7.2782 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Andrew Hayley in Beijing and Aizhu Chen in Singapore; editing by David Evans and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)