San Miguel Corporation (SMC) Chairman and CEO Ramon S. Ang renewed his offer to sell Petron Corporation back to the Philippine government, as the country navigates a national energy emergency and some lawmakers once again explore the possibility of returning the country’s only oil refinery to state hands.
“I first made this offer to Congress in 2021, and it remains open. If the government believes that Petron under its ownership will better serve the Filipino people especially in times like these, we are ready to sit down and make it happen,” Ang said.
He said the sale could be structured in tranches at fair market valuation so the government would not need to shoulder a lump-sum payment during a difficult fiscal period.
“We have never treated Petron as simply a profit center. We lost over P11 billion in 2020. We invested $2 billion to upgrade the Bataan refinery and kept it running even when it would have been easier to just import finished fuel, the way other oil companies chose to do. We did that because the country needs its own refining capacity. That has always been our reason,” he said.
With the Petron Bataan refinery processing 180,000 barrels per day and supplying roughly a third of national fuel demand, Ang noted that the facility’s importance to energy security has only grown amid the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz and record-high fuel prices.
“This is not about who owns Petron. This is about what is best for the country,” Ang said.
