PTT set to open biggest station in Phl next week

MANILA, Philippines - PTT Philippines, the local subsidiary of Thailand’s biggest oil firm PTT Public Co. Ltd., has set aside P75 million for its biggest gasoline station in the country, set to formally open next week.

The so-called Platinum station, which will open in Lucena in Quezon province, is PTT Philippines’ biggest, with designs and standards patterned after its stations in Thailand and different from its other retail stations around the country.

The station will carry commercial establishments on top of the gasoline facility, said PTT Philippines president and chief executive officer Sukanya Seriyothin.

The Platinum station is part of PTT’s aggressive expansion program set in the next four years.

“We remain on track of our expansion program and you will get to see more PTT stations opening up this year after this Lucena station,” Seriyothin said.

He said the company is accelerating its expansion to achieve its target of putting up 150 stations in the Philippines in the next four years.

PTT has earmarked P2.1 billion for its expansion program in the medium term. The company presently has 74 service stations mostly located in Luzon and in Cebu.

After the Lucena station, PTT will also open other stations in southern and northern Luzon.

It is also set to start the construction this year of its SCTEX station located in Concepcion, Tarlac. The SCTEX project will be PTT’s first theme park-like station in the Philippines, sitting on a two-hectare lot.

Apart from key executives from PTT Philippines, the company’s executives from its parent firm in Thailand will lead the opening of the Lucena Platinum Station together with officials from the Department of Energy and the Royal Thai Embassy Manila.

The company has been in the Philippines for 18 years and is also in the business of serving industries such as aviation, maritime and mining.

In 2013, the oil firm placed 89th in the Philippines’ Top 1000 Corporations.

In Thailand, PTT is the largest oil and gas company engaged in the upstream and downstream petroleum and coal businesses.