China's two major oil producers, Petro­China and Sinopec, received a total of 12.2 billion yuan ($1.98 billion) in government subsidies in 2012 to ease their losses in the refinery sector. But experts noted Thursday that they are no longer entitled to such large subsidies, as the government is reforming domestic energy pricing.

Due to the government's control of domestic oil and natural gas prices, China's energy companies have been suffering losses in the refinery business as they rely heavily on imported crude oil.

PetroChina reported 33.6 billion yuan of losses in its refinery business in 2012, and Sinopec reported refinery losses of 11.4 billion yuan.

However, both of them reported profit gains last year, with PetroChina earning 115.3 billion yuan and Sinopec 63.6 billion yuan.

Some people consider the large subsidies unreasonable because the companies still reap huge profits from other businesses.

"It is also not clear whether it is true they are suffering from such huge losses, as their costs are nontransparent," Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times Thursday.

Lin noted that as the government further reforms gasoline and natural gas pricing, the two energy companies' losses in the refinery sector will be reduced, so in the future they will not need such big subsidies.

State-owned companies in other sectors also receive huge subsidies for various reasons. For instance, Chongqing Iron and Steel (Group) Co got 2 billion yuan in subsidies from the local government in 2012 due to its struggling performance.

China's airlines also got considerable government subsidies as incentive to open new airlines in unprofitable regions. China Eastern received over 1.7 billion yuan in subsidies last year.

As private companies seldom get government subsidies when they are struggling, some argue that the large size of subsidies to State-owned companies is unfair to private firms.

The top 10 State-controlled companies, in terms of subsidies received in 2012, got around 22.5 billion yuan that year, which helped some companies to avoid bankruptcy or delisting from the capital market.

"Of course (the subsidies) are not reasonable. The most effective way to allocate social resources should be market measures," Feng Po, an analyst at ChinaVenture Investment Consulting, said Thursday.