MANILA, Philippines -- Petron Corporation said it will advance its scheduled refinery maintenance shutdown, which will last for the whole of December, but assured motorists this will not have any effect on local pump prices or on expected oil price rollbacks.

In a statement Friday, Petron spokesperson Virginia Ruivivar said the firm?s management has decided to implement the scheduled shutdown earlier than the original January 2009 schedule to ?allow the earlier tie-in of its new Benzene, Toluene, Xylene (BTX) unit to the Continuous Catalytic Regenerator (CCR) at its 180,000 barrel-per-day refinery.?

Maintenance work for other units such as the Atmospheric Pipestill-2 (APS-2), LVN Isomerization and the Gasoil Hydrotreater (GOHT-3) will also be undertaken in December, she said.

Despite this, Ruivivar assured motorists that Petron has enough stocks to serve the country?s fuel requirements.

At the same time, the shutdown will have no effect on expected oil price rollbacks as world oil prices continue to decline.

?The decision to shut down our refinery one month earlier will put us in a better position to take advantage of market improvements that we project to happen in the first quarter of 2009,? Ruivivar said.

?As the oil markets stabilize, we also expect prices of petrochemical feedstocks to become firmer,? she added.

Petron?s BTX unit will allow it to produce 22,000 metric tons per year of Benzene and 150,000 metric ton of Toluene, and increase its Mixed Xylene production to 220,000 metric ton per year.