Investments board OKs Seaoil’s Davao depot

THE Board of Investments (BoI) recently approved the registration of Seaoil Philippines’ four-storagetank oil depot in Davao del Sur province that is expected to further reduce gas prices in Mindanao.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Trade department-attached agency said the P287- million facility, which began operations in September and stores gasoline and diesel, would add 36.9 million liters to its current 41.050 million liters in storage capacity for a total of 78.150 million liters.

“This combined capacity is actually more than enough to accommodate the average daily requirement of 73 million liters of fuel nationwide,” Trade Undersecretary and BoI Managing Head Ceferino Rodolfo said in the statement.

“The additional storage capacity of fuel means [the] additional supply of fuel may allow the company that could lead to oil price hikes, or at the very least mitigate its price increase in several parts of Mindanao,” he explained.

The approval came after BoI found

Marketing of Petroleum Products” under the Investment Priorities PlanSpecial Laws list pertaining to Republic Act, 8479 or the Downstream Oil Deregulation Act of 1994.

According to Seaoil, the additional capacity may possibly lead diesel prices to drop by 10 percent or about P5. This is on top of the weekly rollbacks the country is having because of the continued drop in global oil prices.

Owned by businessman Francis Yu, with Caltex Australia as minority partner, Seaoil is regarded as the biggest independent fuel company in the country. It offers one of the lowest per-liter prices of fuel in the southern Philippines.