MANILA, Philippines—Petron Corp. plans to invest $1 billion in upgrading its Bataan refinery to sustain its growth momentum this year.

At the company’s stockholders’ meeting, Petron president Eric O. Recto said the upgrade would involve the acquisition of additional units of Petro Fluidized Catalytic Cracker (PetroFCC 2), which would enable the company to fully convert residual products to higher value gasoline, liquefied petroleum gas, diesel and propylene.

At present, Petron’s 180,000-barrel-per-day refinery produces a significant amount of low-value fuel oil for every barrel of crude processed.

“With our PetroFCC 1, Petron can only convert 75 percent of every barrel of crude to white products. PetroFCC 2 will give the company full conversion capability,” he said.

According to Recto, the FCC 2 may take some five years to complete.

“It’s not a refinery capacity issue that we are looking at. It is a refinery efficiency program that we have already embarked on, which is the first phase of the refinery upgrade. The first phase of the PetroFCC targets to increase the conversion efficiencies,” Recto said.