Superkalan Gaz sets P120-M expansion

Superkalan Gaz Corp. (SGC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Totalfinaelf Philippines Corp. (TFE Phils.) will invest P120 million this year to expand its operations, company president Roberto T. Velasquez said yesterday.

Velasquez, who is also the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) manager of TFE Phils., said this year’s investment is slightly higher than the P100-million expansion budget in 2001.

About P50 million will be used to finance a plan to double the capacity of its existing 11-kilogram LPG cylinder refilling plant in Taguig, Metro Manila. The refilling plant has at present a capacity of 2,500 per day.

He said they will spend the remaining P70 million for the improvement of its existing storage and filling terminal of its 2.7 kg Superkalan cylinder refilling station (which has 8,000 cylinders per day capacity).

According to Velasquez, the expansion will enable the company to serve other customers in other parts of the country.

SGC Brummel Billones said at present, 80 percent of their output goes to Metro Manila while the remaining 20 percent is sold in the provinces.

"We want to serve other customers in the South," Velasquez said, noting that they remain bullish on the prospects of the LPG business in the country despite the slump in the industry for the past few years because of rampant illegal refilling activities.

The company’s sales amounted to P40 million a month or P480 million in one year. He noted that this revenue level would have been higher were it not for illegal refilling activities that ate up at least 20 percent of the local market.

He said that since the start of oil deregulation in 1998, the number of illegal refillers has increased substantially.

As a result, he said their market contracted in 1999, 2000 and 2001. He said last year, they were able to sell about 10,000 tons but they expect this to drop to 9,500 this year.

TFE Phils. entered into a joint venture with Shell Petroleum N.V. by acquiring 15 percent of the Shell Gas Eastern Inc. The partners constructed two new loading facilities worth P119 million in the LPG import and storage terminal near the coast in Tabangao, Batangas, a facility that is complemented by TFE’s LPG refilling plants in Taguig ($5.5-million worth) and Pasig (P20 million worth), which have a capacity of 30 and 20 metric tons, respectively. – Donnabelle Gatdula