China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., Asia's largest refiner, may hire more supertankers than Exxon Mobil Corp. for the first time this year to haul oil from as far as Angola and Venezuela.

A trading unit of the Chinese company became the world's second-largest charterer of very large crude carriers in 2006, lagging behind only Exxon, according to shipbroker Poten & Partners. Beijing-based China Petroleum, known as Sinopec, was third in 2005 and 10th in 2004.

China will expand refining capacity 25 percent by 2010 to increase gasoline and diesel supplies after vehicle sales more than tripled in five years. That's increased imports of crude oil on VLCCs to meet consumption as output from aging domestic fields stagnates.

"We see China continuing to become a more important factor in the VLCC market," said Ole-Rikard Hammer, managing director at Oslo-based ship broker P.F. Bassoe. "The Chinese will find it hard to keep up with growth in import demand."

China International United Petroleum, the Beijing-based trading arm of Sinopec, hired 103 VLCCs in the single-voyage, or spot, market in 2006, up from 86 in 2005 and 56 in 2004, according to figures compiled by New York-based Poten. Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, hired 149 VLCCs in 2006, 118 in 2005 and 134 in 2004.

China International is known as Unipec. VLCCs are each able to transport 2 million barrels of oil.

Source:佚名