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.

"Not Enough"

Reliance on foreign-owned vessels has prompted a shipbuilding program to enhance China's energy security.

"Chinese owners are trying to build up the fleets in order to match the charterers' requirements, but that's not going to be enough," Mathieu Philippe, an oil tanker broker in the Dubai office of Paris-based Barry Rogliano Salles. "China is definitely a major player in the VLCC market."

China's crude oil imports rose 8.9 percent in March to a record 13.9 million metric tons, or 3.3 million barrels a day, according to the Customs General Administration of China.

In 2001, the nation's shipowners didn't operate a single VLCC, forcing oil importers to contract vessels owned by Bermuda-based Frontline Ltd., the world's largest publicly traded VLCC operator, and other overseas companies.

China Ocean Shipping Co. and China Shipping Group, the nation's largest ship owners, now have 13 VLCCs in service and a further 16 under construction. In total, China's state-owned shipping companies will have 36 supertankers by 2010, about 7 percent of today's global fleet.

China Ocean

China Ocean Shipping aims to more than double the size of its supertanker fleet by 2015, Meng Qinglin, managing director of Cosco Dalian, said at the Shipping Energy China 2007 conference in Shanghai yesterday. Cosco, as the Beijing-based company is known, wants to own 40 VLCCs, by 2015. Cosco Dalian is the unit that runs China Ocean Shipping's VLCC fleet.

"The huge market gap will stimulate the major shipping companies in China to expand their the fleets," Zhu Xinqiang, assistant president and board member of China Exim Bank, said today at the conference. "This may lead to fierce competition in oil transportation."

The world's fourth-largest economy expanded at a faster- than-expected 11.1 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, spurring demand for gasoline, jet fuel and petrochemicals used by manufacturers.

Dictate Requirements

Oil demand growth in China and India, the region's fastest- growing economies, will dictate requirements for supertankers in Asia, said Kats Nishikawa, a broker at Tokyo-based Matsui & Co. That's because demand in the region's other major importers including Japan and South Korea is stable.

Several other Chinese companies have acquired supertanker fleets, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Hebei Ocean Shipping Co. has four VLCCs and China National Foreign Transportation Group Corp., or Sinotrans, has two.

China Merchants Steam Navigation Co. has two ships under construction, while Nanjing Yangyang Chemical Transport & Trade Co. has a fleet of nine VLCCs being built.

"Increasing China's fleet doesn't mean reducing its chartering activities," Barry Rogliano's Philipe said in a telephone interview. "China will remain a major player for many years. There's no doubt about it."

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