PTT to hike Philippine investments

The PTT Group of Thailand is pushing ahead with its investment plan in the Philippines, despite the prevailing uncertainty in the oil industry, a company official said. Siripong Phoungpaka, PTT Philippines Corp. president, said they would be interested to bid for the governments 40% stake in Petron Corp. should the state-owned firm decide to sell it. If government will still want to sell its part via bidding, we will join, Phoungpaka said. The group earlier signified its interest to invest as much as US$400 million in the countrys petrochemical industry and is also considering investing up to US$700 million in several natural gas projects. The Philippines is also one of the biggest clients of the PTT Group in terms of petrochemicals. Eyeing to undertake an initial public offering (IPO) in the near future, PTT is expected to invest another Php5 billion (US$110.5 million) over the next five years to continuously expand its network by at least 10-20 service stations a year. (July 7, 2008)