Phoenix Petroleum's first quarter sales revenue more than doubles

MANILA, Philippines - Phoenix Petroleum Philippines Inc., a publicly-listed oil firm, said its gross sales revenue for quarter of 2010 more than doubled to P2.7 billion as against P1.03 billion in the same period last year.

The company attributed the improvement in sales to the 113 percent rise in total fuel sales volume for the initial three months of 2010 as new station openings specially in Luzon quintupled over a 12-month period.

The additional stations stamped their presence in their respective trade areas and began contributing substantially to total volume turnover.

At the same time, sales to industrial and commercial customers showed record growth for the quarter, enhanced by a major uptick in supply to the airline market.

The company’s Visayas-Mindanao retail network, which had modest additions during the first quarter, also recorded sizable volume growth as improved network efficiencies yielded higher average sales per station.

The overall growth in retail sales was attributed to increased motorist patronage as a result of better brand visibility and the favorable impact of continuing marketing promotions.

At the end of the first quarter, Phoenix had 125 operational retail stations from 97 in 2009. The company is currently growing its retail network to at least 160 stations by end-2010 which is seen to boost its fuel sales volume to another record high from the 201 million liters it attained in 2009.

With a prospectively wider retail reach, the company is confident of improving its share of the national fuels market this year from approximately 1.2 percent in 2009.

In revenue terms, Phoenix recorded fuel sales of P2.31 billion for the first quarter of 2010 or approximately 145 percent higher than the initial quarter of 2009.

“Worthy to note, Phoenix’s fuel revenues for the first three months of the year was already close to 40 percent of its consolidated revenues of P5.87 billion for the whole of 2009,” it said.

The company expects to report shortly its first quarter 2010 full results of operations and financial condition. Phoenix Petroleum recently disclosed its 2009 core net earnings of P178 million was 18.5 percent higher than 2008’s P150 million.

The company also booked a one-time gain of P573 million in 2009 which represented the excess of the fair market value over its acquisition cost of Bacnotan Industrial Park Corp. in March 2009.

Phoenix Petroleum is a leading domestic independent petroleum company engaged in the storage, hauling and distribution of petroleum products in the Philippine market through its national retail network and to institutional accounts.