Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp., the country’s second largest oil firm, said it completed a P730-million bitumen or asphalt production facility in Batangas province.
PSPC said it was in the process of starting up the bitumen facility inside the 110,000- barrel-per-day refinery in Tabangao, Batangas.
“It has been mechanically completed in first quarter. It is literally being started up now and we should be ready with bitumen sales, most likely export by the end of the quarter or thereabouts. The bitumen facility has been completed and being started,” PSPC president Cesar Romero said.
Romero said bitumen would be exported to China and other Southeast Asia countries where there was a shortage of the by-product.
“Of course, we will also be looking at domestic sales. The facility is big enough to both be an export and domestic facility. We balance both,” he said.
Romero said the bitumen facility provided PSPC with an option on what to do with excess fuel oil, given the decline in demand.
“Demand for fuel oil is declining because of coal plants. You have stranded surplus fuel oil so with this, we can use those molecules at even higher value for us,” he said.
PSPC is also set to complete in the fourth quarter its P260-million supply and logistics facility also in the Tabangao refinery.
The supply and logistics project will reduce PSPC’s gate-to-gate time truck delivery by half, thus contributing to cost efficiency.
The project is seen vital in PSPC’s operations with the increase in the throughput of the terminal up to 7 million liters a day, following the closure of the Pandacan depot in 2015.
PSPC also unveiled a plan to double its annual investment in retail network expansion to P2 billion starting this year. PSPC said it was allocating an average of P4 billion annually for capital expenditure, including P1 billion for retail expansion.
It said the annual capex would stay at P4 billion, but the budget for retail expansion would increase to P2 billion, with a target to put up 70 retail stations in 2018 and make further inroads into non-fuel retailing through deli2Go and Select.
Romero said the company aimed to open 70 stations annually. “For stations built, we remain on our commitment of 50 to 70 per year on average. Despite our growth, we do not hesitate to close.. underperforming stations,” he said.
The company opened 66 stations last year, ending 2017 with 1,044 stations nationwide.