China may grant new crude import licences to private companies and release new quotas on oil imports within the next two weeks, as it moves to open the world’s top energy consumer to more competition, the Shanghai Securities News said on Thursday.

China regulates its oil imports via a quota system, and state energy giants Sinopec and PetroChina control nearly 90 percent of the country’s total imports. The size of their quotas are largely at their own discretion, based on refinery production plans.

Any new quotas would be given first to private enterprises that hold crude oil resources in other countries and can export from those locations, the state-owned financial newspaper reported, citing anonymous sources.

The government has preferred to work through the two state companies than deal with many competing importers, but may feel that more domestic competition will push the pair to keep fuel supply abundant even when refining margins are poor.

China imported 6.13 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil in the first half of this year, up 10.2 percent from a year earlier, according to customs data.

Last year, China National Chemical Corp (ChemChina), which owns China’s largest chain of standalone refineries, was granted a quota to import a 10 million tonnes or about 200,000 bpd, a rare win in the tightly controlled crude import market.

Government documents last year showed that China has been considering opening up the crude import market to more local teapot refineries, raising quotas by up to another 200,000 bpd.

Shanghai Securities News also reported that a recent survey by central government policy researchers found support among independent refiners for opening up gasoline and diesel imports to private firms and scraping the consumption tax for fuel oil.