PTT eyes major Philippines expansion
PTT Plc, through local subsidiary PTT Philippines Corp, is spending between 3.5 billion Philippine pesos (Bt2.5 billion) and 4 billion over the next five years to bankroll its expansion in the country.
In an interview last Friday night, Artasith Pothiapinyanvisuth, PTT's executive vice president for commercial and international marketing, said the investment would finance the establishment of 50 retail stations in metropolitan Manila and Cebu and the construction of a soon-to-be-operated Cebu depot that would support the oil firm's retail expansion. About 1 billion Philippine peso would go to a planned liquefied petroleum gas storage and distribution facility with a capacity of 5,000 metric tons, he said. PTT Philippines president and chief executive Siripong Phoungpaka said PTT was a big producer of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in Thailand, supplying both the domestic and international markets, including Vietnam, China and Cambodia. In two years, he said the company would already have a production surplus, prompting it to start now looking for other markets for its LPG. "The Philippines is importing one million metric tonnes of LPG a year because local producers can only produce 300,000 metric tonnes. But PTT will have a surplus in two years. That's why we're thinking of putting up a facility here," he told reporters. Artasith said the company was scouting for a good location for its LPG depot. Apart from an LPG facility, he said PTT also planned to transfer one of its two lubricant-blending facilities in Thailand to the Philippines. He said it would make more economic sense for the company to just blend the lubricants in the Philippines instead of the current set-up, which entailed having to bring into the Philippines finished products from its refineries and blending facilities in Singapore and Thailand. "We export finished products to the Philippines. Transportation cost is very high. It's not competitive," he said. He said the oil firm's planned Philippine blending facility would be able to produce 20 million litres of different lubricants. Siripong said the Philippine lubricants market presented a great revenue and market share expansion opportunity to the oil firm, considering its annual demand of 170 million litres a year. PTT's five-year expansion also includes the possibility of setting up an ethanol refinery in the Philippines, Artasith said.
Philippine Daily Inquirer Asia News Network Manila
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