China National Petroleum Corp will have its own "very large crude carriers" to transport oil, now that its joint venture with Petroleo De Venezuela has received approval.
The National Development and Reform Commission has allowed China Venezuela Shipping Co Ltd to build four VLCCs, the commission said in a statement.
It is the first time that a Chinese oil company will build its own supertankers, end a history of reliance on international shipping companies to import crude oil.
China Venezuela Shipping was established in 2008 and registered in Singapore, with both establishing companies holding a 50 percent stake in the joint venture.
The initial target of the joint venture is to build four 320,000 deadweight-tonnage VLCCs to transport crude oil between the two countries.
China's crude-oil imports have seen continuous grow in recent years, despite lacking oil tankers and an ocean oil transport crew, some insiders said.
China has imported 200.4 million tons of crude oil through the end of September, a 6.4 percent year-on-year increase.
CNPC said that the benefits of building its own VLCCs is that it guarantees the safety of overseas resources, provides stable transportation, avoids the excessive fluctuation of freight costs, and improves CNPC's controlling and risk resistance capacity of overseas resources transportation
Some in the shipping industry say China Venezuela Shipping's large carriers may grow larger, which would make the recession in the shipping industry worse because of the added competition.
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