Liquigaz mulls new LPG plant in Luzon

MANILA, Philippines - Liquigaz Philippines Inc. is planning to put up another LPG plant in Luzon as an indication of its continued confidence on the Philippine oil industry’s growth prospects, a top company official said.

Santanu Guha, Liquigaz president and managing director, said they plan to build a new plant despite slower sales growth expected this year.

He said they are targeting sales to grow by a modest five-percent growth in 2011, lower than the 10-percent growth in 2010.

“Our results in 2011 have not been every good because of the high fluctuation of gas prices as well as foreign exchange. We import in dollars and sell in pesos and those fluctuations and the forex went badly for several months which ended up not very good for us,” he said.

According to Guha, they may be able to improve sales growth in 2012 to 7.5 percent if all their diversification efforts would bear fruits.

“We hope that we could do better for 2012, if not maintain the target sales level for 2011,” he said.

Liquigaz, he said, has started initiatives to introduce the use of dual fuel-auto LPG products in the public transport sector and would soon offer LPG conversion kits for private cars.

He said they are also looking at the use of LPG-run airconditioning system for industrial customers.

While all these efforts, have been on their preliminary stages, he said they are hopeful that these would help boost the company’s revenues in the future.

“We are open to looking at alternative fuels. We want to see what our options are,” he said.

Liquigaz, the second largest supplier of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) products in the country, runs a 12,000 metric tons LPG storage facility in Bataan and a 75-MT LPG hub in Bulacan.

Recently, it partnered with several bus companies to pilot test the use of dual-fueled (diesel-auto-LPG) in the next six months.

Liquigaz, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SHV Energy of the Netherlands, was established in 1995. It currently accounts for 31 percent the country’s total LPG demand, supplying the LPG needs of major industrial customers including Mariwasa, Asia Brewery, Mc Donalds, Chowking, SM North Edsa, Max’s Restaurants, Andok’s Litson, and many others.