Consumer & Oil Price Watch chairman Raul T. Concepcion has urged the government to make a pitch for oil refinery investments from Russian and other countries to encourage more competition and the introduction of new technology in the local market amid the presence of the already established oil majors here.

Concepcion made this call in light of the fact that the big oil players in the country Shell Philippines Corp. and Chevron Philippines Inc. have stopped their oil refining operations in the country as they rely on imported finished petroleum products.

Shell used to operate a refinery in Tabangao, Batangas but is now merely importing its finished products.

Chevron Philippines Inc. (formerly Caltex Philippines Inc.), the country’s third oil marketer, closed its Batangas refinery in 2003 after 49 years of operation to pave the way to a P750 million finished product import terminal project. The change in Caltex’s strategy had resulted in the displacement of 180 of the total 220 workers at its refinery.

Petron Corp., which is partly government-owned, is the lone oil refiner in the country at its Bataan plant. It even spent $300 million to upgrade its refinery in Bataan. Petron is the country’s largest and only publicly- listed oil refiner in the Philippines.