China's four shipping groups - COSCO, China Shipping, Sinotrans and China Merchants Energy Shipping - are to place orders for around 50 very large crude oil carriers at domestic shipyards through their tanker specialized subsidiaries by establishing VLCC pool.
Their investment plan is based on the Chinese governmental policies, which aims to transport around 60% of total crude oil imports with Chinese-flagged tonnages.
Specific dates to sign contracts are still undisclosed, while each group is expected to book around 10-20 newbuildings by 2020.