Seaoil expands Mindanao storage tanks’ capacity
Seaoil Philippines aims to sell at 15 cheaper per liter of diesel and gasoline fuels for Mindanao customers as it expands the company’s total combined storage capacities to 78.150 million liters, which are more than enough to accommodate the daily average daily requirement of the country.
The 1287-million four storage-tank oil depot project of Seaoil Philippines was approved for tax incentives purposes by the Board of Investments (BOI).
The new tanks will bring additional storage capacities of 36.9 million liters of gasoline and diesel fuels to its existing 41.050 million liters of storage in the southern part of Mindanao for a combined total of 78.150 million liters of fuel capacity.
Trade Undersecretary and BOI Managing Head Ceferino Rodolfo cited Seaoil’s combined capacity for being more than enough to accommodate the average daily requirement of 73 million liters of fuel nationwide.
“The additional storage capacity of fuel means additional supply of fuel may allow the company to efficiently manage its inventory levels and avoid external shocks that could lead to oil price hikes or at the very least mitigate its price increase in several parts of Mindanao,” said Rodolfo.
In granting tax incentives to the project, the BOI said that Seaoil qualified for Bulk Marketing of Petroleum Products under the Investment Priorities Plan (IPP) – Special Laws list pertaining to RA 8479 or the Downstream Oil Deregulation Act of 1994.
RA 8479 liberalizes and deregulates the downstream oil industry in order to ensure a truly competitive market under a regime of fair prices, adequate and continuous supply of environmentally-clean and high-quality petroleum products by encouraging the participation of new oil industry players through the provision of incentives.
Seaoil Philippines is owned by businessman Francis Yu with Caltex Australia as minority partner. It is considered the largest independent fuel company in the country and the firm has said it is committed to provide quality, environmentfriendly and affordable products to the Filipinos. The approved activity already started operations in September 2018.
Seaoil Philippines already offers one of the lowest per liter prices of fuel in the southern part of the Philippines.
The company also reported that with the additional depot capacity, its diesel prices could possibly experience a price drop of around 10 percent, or around 15 cheaper than the prevailing prices. This is on top of the weekly rollbacks due to the continuing decline in global oil prices.