１ｓｔ Ｐｒｖａｔｅ Ｏｉｌ Ｇｒｏｕｐ Ｅｓｔａｈ－ｌｉｓｈｅｄ Ａｍｉｄ Ｄｉｓｐｕｔｅｓ

China's first private petroleum group， the GreatUnited Petroleum Holding Co.， Ltd (GUPC)， hasannounced its establishment.

\"It marks a breakthrough in China's oil industry longmonopolized by the state-owned economy，\"said Bao Yujun，director of the All-China Society of the Private Economyat the ceremony.

However， with nearly 1，000 guests， including foreignenvoys， experts and entrepreneurs of the petroleum indus-try， there is no official from the central government givinga formal attendance to the ceremony.

Initiated by several domestic private petroleum enter-prises， the conglomerate declared to have nearly fifty pri-vate enterprises as shareholders and a capital of about fivebillion yuan (603.9 million US dollars) and announced tobe the largest private petroleum enterprise of China.

Gong Jialong， chairman of GUPC， said that with GUPCas the parent company， they aim to establish a transnationalgroup corporation with several subsidiaries covering allsectors of the oil industry chain including exploration andmining， refinery and chemicals， storage and logistics，wholesale and retailing， and import and export.

According to Gong， the corporation plans to draw atotal capital of 500 billion yuan with nearly 1，000 enter-prises as shareholders in three to five years and chooses tobe listed at a proper time.

But Gong admitted that the group will still not havesome necessary qualifications from the government includ-ing a wholesale license for oil products， the import licensesfor oil products and fuel oil and a license for petroleumexploitation.

The unification of private enterprises to establish sucha conglomerate will give impetus to breaking the monopolyof China's petroleum industry and bring more competitionto the market， said Liang Yangchun， a researcher with thedepartment of industrial economy of the Development Re-search Center of State Council.