Petron Corp. will proceed with the shutdown of its 180,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Limay, Bataan this month, a top executive said over the weekend.
Petron president Ramon Ang confirmed the shutdown of Petron refinery for economic reasons. He said earlier the refinery would be closed for four months starting February but might still reopen this year depending on the economic situation.
He said the shutdown would go ahead despite the recent approval of the project as a registered enterprise of the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan.
The AFAB registration of the Petron refinery facility will help make its refining business more competitive by improving its financial viability in the long run and address some major concerns.
Petron plans to invest nearly P3 billion to further improve the efficiency of the integrated operation of the refinery over the next five years.
“Considering that the refining business remains challenging both here and around the world, the plan for the refinery to undergo an economic plant shutdown early this year will still proceed,” Petron said in a previous disclosure.
Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi earlier assured the country’s supply would not be affected by the refinery shutdown.
“They will import the finished product and use their terminal as storage for clean product instead of crude oil. Petron is also looking to keeping their market share, that will not affect the supply,” Cusi said.
Petron has a network of about 2,400 retail stations nationwide which capture about a third of the domestic market. Petron is the only remaining oil refinery in the country after Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. shut down its 110,000-barrel-per-day refinery because of the impact of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the oil firms are expected to raise the price of gasoline by P0.20 to P0.30 per liter.
“Expect fuel prices to have mix movement next week [Feb. 2 to Feb. 8]. Diesel should have no price change. Gasoline should increase by P0.20 to P0.30 per liter,” Unioil Philippines said in its weekly forecast.
Oil companies including refiners were affected by the low demand amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
