Eastern Petroleum to deploy 10,000 GAZelle fleets in 5 years

Eastern Petroleum Corporation will go big time on its deployment of Russian-manufactured GAZelle vehicles on Philippine roads that it is targeting to hit 10,000 fleets in five years.

Eastern Petroleum Chairman Fernando L. Martinez said the pilot units of 12 light commercial vehicles will arrive this December and will be ramped up to 500 units next year.

An investment of R200 million is also cast in the company’s blueprint for a showroom that will be sited along the stretch of Manila-Cavite Expressway (Cavitex), a project that will likely take off next year.

Martinez said “the planned showroom’s site was originally intended for a major gasoline station, but we can just have a smaller station there and have the site allotted for the showroom.”

He similarly divulged that the company would be putting up a subsidiary for its diversifying venture in the transport sector, envisioned to be an integral part of the fleet modernization program being pushed by the Department of Transportation.

Eastern Petroleum inked a deal last month with Russian firm GAZ Group, granting the Filipino company the rights “for distribution and aftersales service of GAZ’s light commercial vehicles,” including its Gazelle Next 17-seater minibus and Gazelle Next City Line 20-seater bus.

The Philippine government’s fleet modernization program is partly anchored on a paradigm intending to replace the old buses plying the country’s major thoroughfares.

According to Martinez, his company’s tie-up deal with the Russian firm will allow them “to aggressively participate in public transport modernization that badly needs private and public sector investments.”

The Gazelle Next Family has a line of light commercial vehicles, ranging from trucks, utility vehicles, vans and minibuses – and equipped with technologies utilizing diesel, gasoline or gas engines.

For the Philippine fleet modernization program, it was envisioned that at first stage in year 2023, the target will be to roll out roughly 200,000 units of new bus fleets – that could either be minibuses, medium or large buses.

In tandem with that move would be the targeted opening of new bus routes – by at least 150 – within the specified timeframe.

Additionally, more than 200,000 units of the widely used jeepneys would also be up for replacement in the next five years.