”With the country dominated by big oil companies who have their own storage tanks comes a unique business proposition for us where we build and lease out storage facilities to those who want to put up their own tanks,” Juan Alfonso, Chemoil general manager, told reporters.

Oil companies can specify how much storage they need and Chemoil will build it for them and lease it out on a long-term basis, according to Alfonso. The company would build and lease out facilities to anyone who wants to enter the local oil industry, he was quoted saying in the Philippines newspaper BusinessMirror.

Chemoil’s principals in the region and the US said it had been a difficult decision whether or not to invest in the Philippines. ”Initially, we were looking at investing in power generation,” Alfonso said. But management decided instead to focus on its core business, which is fuel trading, particularly bunker fuel. ”However, the Philippines is really not a bunker fuel port per se, so we think we can only complement our Singapore fuel trading business operations,” Alfonso was quoted saying.

Chemoil acquired an LNG chemicals terminal in Pinamucan, Batangas in August 2008. It is currently working on upgrading and expanding the terminal’s facility, which was built in 1994. The terminal has a present capacity of 34,000 cubic metres (m³) for storing chemical and/or diesel. Alfonso said some of the tanks are leased out to fuel companies who rent the tanks on a monthly basis. ”But we also want to double the size in five years to basically store more diesel and then also if it can expand later on then we store bunker fuel as well,” Alfonso said. Chemoil has about 20 hectares of freehold land-space in the Philippines where it can build more tanks to meet market demand for fuel. ”Eventually, we probably would be trading fuel as well, but there are no immediate plans for that since our goal is to expand our existing capacity and provide logistics solutions to those who are in need of it,” Alfonso said.