Sinopec may hire more tankers than Exxon

Asia's largest oil refiner, China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec), may hire more supertankers than ExxonMobil for the first time this year as it seeks to haul oil from Angola and Venezuela. A trading unit of the company became the world's second-largest charterer of very large crude carriers in 2006. Sinopec was third in 2005 and 10th in 2004, Bloomberg reported, quoting figures from shipbroker Poten & Partners. China plans to expand refining capacity by 25% by 2010 to increase gasoline and diesel supplies as vehicle sales have tripled in five years. "The Chinese will find it hard to keep up with growth in import demand," said Ole-Rikard Hammer, managing director at Oslo shipbroker P. F. Bassoe. Sinopec hired 103 tankers in the single-voyage market in 2006, up from 86 in 2005. ExxonMobil, the world's largest publicly traded company, hired 149 last year.  China's crude oil imports rose 8.9% in March to a record 13.9 million metric tons, or 3.3 million barrels a day.