China National Petroleum Corp is planning to open dozens of petrol stations in Myanmar, the first major foreign investor to enter the fast-growing Southeast Asian fuel market, as the state giant expands its retail oil business, company officials said.

The investment, which could eventually reach tens of millions of dollars, follows a new strategy to tap overseas retail margins as China's domestic fuel market is saturated. The move follows a similar but larger investment in Brazil, where CNPC's global trading and refining unit bought 30 percent of a leading Brazilian fuel dealer last year. 

CNPC sees Myanmar as a prime frontier market for fuel retailing, where foreign participation is minimal but demand is growing at about 10 percent annually on a fast-expanding vehicle fleet and barely existent local refining industry.

“Myanmar is one of the few markets in this region that's open to outside investment and where demand is growing fast,” said a Beijing-based PetroChina executive with direct knowledge of the investment. 

Myanmar is the fastest-growing economy in Southeast Asia, with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecasting growth of 6.8 percent next year.

Myanmar's removal of fuel subsidies in 2007 and opening of the market to private investors has seen the number of petrol stations increase 10-fold over the past decade to more than 2,000, said PetroChina officials and a Yangon-based analyst.

Instead of using its PetroChina brand, which has thousands of petrol outlets in China, CNPC's first fuel station in Myanmar bears the bright red logo of its wholly-owned unit Singapore Petroleum Company (SPC), a Singapore-based refinery that CNPC acquired in 2009.

“The SPC logo is used as it's one of the top brands in Southeast Asia,” said a second PetroChina official.

CNPC is planning “several dozen” petrol stations to start with in Yangon, Mandalay and capital Naypyidaw, under a longer-term goal of setting up hundreds of outlets in Myanmar, said the PetroChina executive, without giving a timeline.