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THE government will consider market conditions and
its cash position in the second semester of year before deciding on
any move for its remaining shares in the Petron Corp., the
Department of Finance said Friday.
Finance Secretary Margarito Teves
said the government keeps its options open regarding the possible
sale of its 40-percent stake in Petron, the Philippines’ largest
oil refiner, adding the privatization should first secure the
approval of President Arroyo, the state-owned Philippine National
Oil Co. and the Privatization Council.
Teves said: “We’ll assess our
cash-position in the next semester. We have to consider [market
conditions]. If they decide to sell the shares, we will do it
through a bidding process. If at all, it would probably in the
second semester. There’s no definite date yet.”
Lance Gokongwei, JG Summit
Holdings Inc. president and chief executive, had said his group
wanted to buy the entire government stake in Petron for P24.6
billion.
Apart from the Gokongweis, no
other party has officially showed interest in the Petron stake. But
Teves said the PTT group of Thailand may be interested, although
that has yet to be confirmed.
The finance chief is confident
that other interested parties will surface once the government
finally decides to dispose of the shareholdings.
Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes
said US-based investment bank Morgan Stanley is looking to corner
Saudi Aramco’s 40-percent stake in Petron.
In 1994, the national government
sold 40 percent of its Petron shares to Saudi Arabia-Aramco
subsidiary Aramco Overseas Co.
Recently, 14 years henceforth,
the Saudi oil firm agreed to sell its entire stake in Petron to
London-based Ashmore Group, which offered $550 million for the said
shareholdings through its unit SEA Refinery Holdings.
PNOC had waived its option to
match the Ashmore offer as it would require budgetary appropriation.
Finance Undersecretary Gil
Beltran said the P1.23-trillion national budget for this year has no
allocation for a buyback of Petron shares.
--Chino S. Leyco
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