Buranin Rattanasombat, executive vice-president of planning at Thailand’s PTT Oil and Retail Business (PTTOR), revealed on Friday that the company is planning to expand its markets in neighbouring countries as part of its overseas business strategy.
“As of June, we had 281 PTT stations in Cambodia, Laos and Philippines,” he said. “The first PTT station in Myanmar is slated to open before the second quarter of next year.”
Buranin further explained that PTTOR had received approval from the Myanmar government for a joint venture project with local partners to build an LPG and oil reserve facility in Myanmar. “The construction of reserve facility should be completed within a year, while a PTT petrol station usually takes four to six months to build,” he said.
PTTOR will be working with Myanmar’s biggest private conglomerate, Kanbawza KBZ Group, to build a comprehensive oil and gas facility complete with storage depot, logistics port and gas packing factory.
“When completed, it will be the biggest oil and gas reserve in Myanmar, with a storage capacity of one million barrels of oil and 4,500 tonnes of LPG,” said Buranin.
“Since Myanmar has no oil refinery, we hope that this project will serve as a fuel storage centre to handle the delivery and quality control of PTT products that will come by sea from Singapore and by land from Thailand,” said Buranin. “The facility is located in Yangon and is connected to a comprehensive logistics network nationwide.”
PTTOR has adopted the same practice in Cambodia, Laos and Philippines to ensure ease of delivery and efficient quality control.
Buranin also revealed that Cafe Amazon, another successful franchise of PTTOR, is now operating 222 branches in Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Oman, Japan, Singapore, China, Malaysia and Myanmar.
THE NATION (THAILAND)