MANILA, Philippines?Petron Corp., the country's largest oil refiner and retailer, has increased to as much as $2 billion (about P88 billion) its planned investments in the upgrade of its 180,000-barrel-a-day refinery and petrochemical business in Bataan.

Petron chair and CEO Ramon S. Ang recently told the Inquirer that the investment in the Refinery Master Plan (RMP) would enable the oil firm to convert the remaining black yields at the refinery into higher-margin white products.

This move will allow the company to produce more special types of gasoline and other oil products, he added.

的f we do this, our oil refinery will be more competitive than the Singapore refinery," he added.

Originally, Petron had planned to spend initially $1 billion for the Phase II upgrade of the Bataan refinery, which was estimated to cost as much as $1.6 billion over the medium term.

Ang expressed confidence that once the Bataan refinery was upgraded, Petron would be able to post an Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) of $1.5 billion yearly.

Currently, the oil company has one Petro Fluidized Catalytic Cracking (PetroFCC) unit and a Propylene Recovery Unit (PRU) in the Bataan refinery, which allows it to convert more black products such as industrial fuel oil into higher-value white products, such as liquefied petroleum gas, gasoline, diesel and kerosene.

The first PetroFCC unit, inaugurated in 2008, has a conversion capacity of 19,000 barrels a day, while the PRU can produce 140,000 metric tons of propylene a year.

Even with this PetroFCC unit, however, Petron can only convert 75 percent of every barrel of crude oil to white products.

As early as 2009, the company already bared plans to construct additional refinery units including a second Petro Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Unit (PetroFCC 2) that will soon enable the full conversion of all the residual products.