Tianjin, a municipality in north China,plans to control the number of its gas stations to 1,200 by 2020, according to a plan made by the local government.
Currently, Tianjin has about 720 gas stations, of which Sinopec runs 450 ones, PetroChina owns 160 ones and Shell operates 65 ones.
The plan suggests there would be less than 48 newly built gas stations each year in the following ten years.
But in fact the number of actual newly added gas stations each year is less than the planned one due to high threshold set by the local government, according to observers familiar with the Tianjin market.
CNOOC, China's third largest oil firm, is also eyeing on the opport unity to build gas stations in Tianjin, but it has yet got local government's approval.Â