Petron assures steady supply despite shutdown

Petron Corp. has assured its customers of a steady oil supply despite its decision to advance the maintenance shutdown from the previous schedule of January 2009 to December 2008.

“The company has been building up inventory in the last several weeks,” Petron public affairs manager Virginia Ruivivar said yesterday.

She said the company has decided to adjust the scheduled refinery maintenance shutdown on an earlier schedule to allow the earlier tie-in of its new benzene toluene, xylene (BTX) unit to the continuous catalytic regenerator (CCR) at its 180,000 barrel-per-day refinery in Bataan.

She said the shutdown is expected to last for about a month as maintenance work for other units such as the atmospheric pipestill-2 (APS-2), LVN isomerization and the gasoil hydrotreater (GOHT-3) will also be conducted during this period.

Ruivivar said Petron, the country’s largest oil company, has more than enough product inventories to serve the nation’s requirements. 

“The decision to shut down our refinery one month earlier will put us in a better position to take advantage of market improvements that we project to happen in the first quarter of 2009,” she said. 

 “As the oil markets stabilize, we also expect prices of petrochemical feedstock to become firmer,” she added.

From an original tie-in schedule of March 2009, the BTX unit will be coupled with the CCR within February 2009.

The company’s BTX unit will allow it to produce 22,000 metric tons per year of benzene and 150,000 MT of toluene, and increase its mixed xylene production to 220,000 MT per year.

In April 2008, Petron commissioned a PetroFCC and popylene recovery unit as part of its petrochemical diversification strategy.

Petron is the largest oil refining and marketing company in the Philippines. Its 180,000 barrel-per-day oil refinery produces a full range of petroleum products to supply nearly 40 percent of the country’s total fuel requirements.

Through more than 1,300 service stations nationwide — the largest service station network in the country – it retails gasoline, diesel and kerosene to motorists.