THE local oil retail arm of Thailand’s PTT Corp.—PTT Philippines Corp. (PTTPC)—is looking at having a total of 12 new stations before the end of the year, Roby Tanjuatco, PTTPC corporate communications head, told reporters.
In a recent interview, the PTTPC official said they plan to open at least five more stations before the end of the year.
To date, Tanjuatco said they have already opened a total of 7 stations all over the country.
Tanjuatco added that they continue to look at expanding their retail network in Central Luzon and as far as North Luzon.
“At the same time, we doing a feasibility study for stations we plan to put up along the major highways and expressways. It’s one of the things we’re looking at. Part of the study will help us determine if we should own and operate the station or own the station and have a dealer operate it,” he said.
Tanjuatco declined to quantify the investment program for these mega stations along major highways and expressways, however describing it to entail huge investments.
But as rule of thumb, according to Tanjuatco, the price of each station could vary from P10 million to P20 million each.
“It all depends on the amount of the property to be acquired,” he said.
At present, PTTPC has a total of 50 service stations operating within the country, 9 of which are in Cebu.
In 2009 Artasith Pothiapinyanvisuth, PTT executive vice president for commercial and international marketing told reporters they plan to spend P30-billion to put up about 150 service stations in Luzon and the Visayas.
A retail station could entail a low of P5 million to a high of P20 million to P25 million in investments.
Pothiapinyanvisuth said they target to put up about 200 service stations within 10 years in locations they have identified in Manila and in the Visayas.
Pothiapinyanvisuth added that they are also looking putting up 2 to 6 stations in Cebu.
Pothiapinyanvisuth admitted that not-so-encouraging demand in Mindanao discourages them to set up retail stations in the region.
In Thailand, PTT runs 1,200 retail stations as well as operates six refineries.
Pothiapinyanvisuth said the global financial turmoil however has prompted them to hold back investments.
