Barring unforeseen circumstances, Petron Corp. is expected to resume the operations of its Bataan refinery next month and to continue delivering a positive bottom line.
The top official of the country’s largest oil firm in the country said Tuesday that Petron will “continue to deliver good performance unless there is a strict lockdown again.”
Petron booked P1.73 billion in net income in the first quarter, a turnaround from the P4.9-billion net loss posted in the same quarter last year and higher than the P1.2-billion net income in the fourth quarter of 2020.
It temporarily closed down its 180,000-barrels per day refinery in May last year and reopened in October. It again ceased refinery operations last February 10. Petron President Ramon S. Ang said during the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting that the Bataan refinery would resume operations next month.
“Petron is a modern refinery which we have upgraded only about 5 years ago and the refinery is very competitive and we see no reason for us to shut down the refinery,” he said when asked if Petron would permanently shut down the refinery.
“In fact, we are set to restart the refinery this coming June unless there is hard lockdown and volume drops tremendously, the refinery is a viable business,” Ang added.
The pandemic has brought down the volume of the oil firm’s revenue by 44 percent last year while sales volumes from both Philippine and Malaysian operations declined by 27 percent. With those numbers, Ang said other companies would not have been able to survive the crisis.
“Luckily, Petron’s balance sheet is very strong. We have prepared the company to be able to weather this kind of storm. Rest assured, this company will survive and make good returns for everyone.”
Petron Chief Financial Officer Emmanuel Eraña said the oil firm has yet to completely overcome the effects of the pandemic as restrictions continue to be implemented worldwide. He is, however, hopeful of a gradual recovery evident in the upward trajectory of volume and income performance of the oil firm in the first quarter of the year.
“We continued to extensively pursue various efficiency and margin enhancement programs to optimize Petron’s refinery assets, and plan to resume refinery operation by the 2nd half of this year.
In December, our Bataan Refinery was granted approval as a registered enterprise by the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan (AFAB). This will benefit the company through better timing of payment and accurate tax base for Value Added Tax,” said Eraña.
Petron has set aside P11 billion for its 2021 capital expenditures (capex), higher than the P8.5 billion it allocated last year. The amount covers its ongoing construction of steam generator plants, strategic retail network expansion, and maintenance requirements. Petron has put up 14 new stations in the first quarter with plans to build more for the rest of the year.
This year’s capex will be financed by a combination of internal cash generation and external financing sources.
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