Total Philippines embarks on aggressive expansion

Total Philippines Corp. is cued for a big ramp up of its retail network over the next five years, with a goal of doubling the number of refuelling stations nationwide to 1,000 from about 500 currently.

TPC president and managing director Laurent Stouffe said in an interview that the oil firm had just about 200 stations in 2016, after nearly two decades of presence in the Philippines.

Stouffe said this network expanded by two and a half times to about 500 stations across the country, both company-owned and dealer-owned.

“We are now putting up 50 stations spread out (across the archipelago),” he said. “In Mindanao alone, we are opening 20 stations to add to the five existing stations we have in the northern part of the island.”

Stouffe also said Total was interested in prospects related to the nascent liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry in the Philippines, particularly with the approaching scale-down of gas production from the Malampaya field in Palawan.

He said Total represented 40 million tons per year of LNG supply and that it was natural for the company to look into the LNG business in the Philippines.

Stouffe added that Total was looking out for possible partners, but that everything was exploratory so far.

According to the Department of Energy, as of end-June this year, Total accounted for 2.1 percent of the Philippine petroleum market.

In the first half of 2018, domestic demand of petroleum products totaled 83.62 million barrels, an increase of 1.6 percent from 82.3 million barrels in the same period of 2017.

On a daily basis, demand was pegged at an equivalent of 462,000 barrels compared with the previous level of 454,600 barrels.