By MYRNA M. VELASCO
Forecasting some stability in prices by next year, one of the country’s independent oil players Seaoil Philippines has programmed about P270-million capital expenditures (capex) that it primarily allots for expansion projects.
"We will further expand stations, opening 26 stations nationwide," announced Seaoil President Glen Yu, noting that the additional investment would already bring in to 145 the total number of stations it would be operating.
Each gasoline station is being earmarked a budget of
P10 million. Locationwise, Yu said that 15 stations will be constructed in Luzon, four in Visayas and seven in Mindanao.
It would be noted that Seaoil is among the most aggressive new players in the oil industry after the introduction of deregulation policy in 1998. So far, its closest competitor within its league is Flying V of the Villavicencio group of companies.
Yu opined that the sense of more steady prices in the coming year have been giving them some confidence to finally let out capital for additional investments in the industry.
Adding to the calmness of the business environment, he said, is the more pacified-than-anticipated response of the consumers to the implementation of the value-added tax (VAT) charges on oil products. "Now that the VAT is in place, we see more stable prices next year," he stressed.
Aside from taking assertive expansion mode, Seaoil is likewise taking the lead in the promotion of alternative fuels for the oil industry, primarily in the introduction of ethanol as an additive to gasoline products.
The company, along with other players namely Eastern Petroleum, Flying V and USA 88, initiated the importation of ethanol from Brazil, supposedly to jumpstart the use of the fuel as gasoline blend, initially at 10-percent.
However, the plan was stalled with the government still to resolve taxation issues on imported ethanol products, to be utilized as alternative fuel for the transport sector.
On one hand, Seaoil and the other new industry players are also giving coco methyl ester (CME) a hard push as another alternative fuel, foremost as a blend to diesel products.
Congress is currently deliberating on a BioFuels Bill that will provide legal framework for the introduction of alternative fuels in the domestic transport sector.
But while this was already certified urgent by Malacanang, the legislative body’s fixation on other matters has been delaying the bill’s enactment into a law.
To date, the consumers are somehow taking a breather from the relentless price spikes in the previous months. Starting the first week of November, constant price rollbacks have been implemented by the local oil companies for almost all product types, including socially-sensitive liquefied petroleum gas and diesel.
For this month, advisory was earlier given that despite some new round of uptrend in global oil prices that again hit the $60 per barrel level, the Independent Philippine Petroleum Companies Association (IPPCA) indicated that they are not expecting any upward movement in pump prices yet.
