Haulers ask PSE to examine Petron’s fuel inventory losses

The Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) has been asked to look into fuel inventory losses of publicly-listed Petron Corp. which its lawyers claimed to be running in the billions. The losses do not appear to be properly reported.

The public has the right to know the real amount of losses and the true causes of the losses, Manuel Quimson, an executive of one of the haulers, stated in an official letter to PSE.

In what is widely believed to be a cover-up attempt, Petron haulers have been accused in court of pilfering alleged shortfalls in fuel delivery, the amount of which keeps changing. In the case of Herma Shipping and Transport Corp. (HSTC), one of the haulers, the figure has been moved from P35 million to P260 million over a two-month period.

Quimson said that such alleged delivery shortfalls are not possible without massive collusion among Petron officials, independent marine surveyors hired by Petron, and crewmen of the haulers. Quimson told the PSE that cargo is measured upon loading at the Bataan refinery witnessed by the three parties on board, sealed in their presence, and measured again before unloading at the Pandacan depot.

Collusion of such massive proportions would involve so many people that Petron officials would have been grossly negligent not to have noticed it over five years and thousands of voyages.

Quimson took strong exception Petron’s misrepresentation that eight drums’ worth of fuel found in the strainer box of a Herma vessel was proof of pilfering. It is common knowledge, Quimson said, that a certain amount of product stays "unpumpable" in the strainers and pipes after unloading. The residual, in fact acting as a primer for the next delivery, normally remains in the pumping system: Any attempt to discharge it would require a manual scooping out with pails, as was done during the inspection of the MT Bocaue in the presence of the sheriff of the Manila Regional Trial Court, and representatives from Petron, the CIDG and the Philippine Coast Guard.

The sheriff’s report confirmed there was nothing unusual on board and Quimson decried Petron’s attempt to maliciously represent the eight drums in the strainer box.

Haulers are responsible for product delivery, Quimson stressed, only while in transit. What happens to the product at Petron’s shore tanks, in Bataan and in Pandacan, before and after unloading, is none of the concern of the hauler, as clearly stated in the hauling contract.

Petron, therefore, must look inward, at its own operations and people, rather than institute fall-guy suits if it is sincere about protecting its consumers by plugging loopholes and curbing pilferage.

The request, Quimson said, comes at a time when Malacanang is asking for transparency from the oil companies. In the matter of Petron and its losses, transparency should include the exercise of arbitration, a feature of hauling contracts, which Petron officials have ignored in favor of dilatory court proceedings.