China begins VLCC fleet expansion

China has begun an ambitious effort to build a fleet of more than 90 VLCC tankers to improve its control over oil imports, vital to sustaining a booming economy, shipping industry experts say.

Government strategic planners in Beijing have set a target that half of the oil imports should be carried on Chinese-owned tankers. No deadline has been set to meet this goal, but Chinese shipping companies are expected to order up to 65 supertankers worth an estimated $7.1 billion by 2012, according to transport analysts. These ships, in addition to the country?s existing fleet of 25 supertankers, would have the capacity to deliver about half of projected imports by about 2015.

A tanker fleet of that size would not put China in the same league as Japan, Norway or Greece, but it would be a sharp improvement in its oil shipment capacity. “It is all about national energy security,” said Yang Baohe, principal naval architect at the Marine Design & Research Institute of China in Shanghai, a subsidiary of the China State Shipbuilding Corp. “We have to be able to use our own ships to transport oil.”

Maritime security analysts say one of China?s greatest fears is that its oil deliveries could be threatened at a time of international tension or conflict.