China's steelmakers, the world's biggest iron-ore buyers, favor Vale SA's very large ships carrying the raw material to get government approval to dock at the nation's ports as the move will cut transport costs.

"The ships will benefit the steelmakers as they will offer lower costs than those incurred using small ships," said Zhang Changfu, secretary-general of the China Iron and Steel Association. Vale, which controls about 26 percent of the world's seaborne iron-ore trade, is spending more than $8 billion to run very large ore carriers to Asia from Brazil.