Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. said it has completed the dismantling of its oil tanks in Pandacan, Manila to comply with the Supreme Courts ruling directing the transfer of the oil companies depot outside the city. The site is slated to be redeveloped for commercial use.
Shell, Petron Corp. and Chevron Philippines jointly operated the Pandacan oil depot. All three companies have ceased their oil depot operations and transferred such to other areas within the country. Shell earlier had shut down its automated lube blending oil plant in Pandacan and said it will not rebuild the blending plant.
Pilipinas Shell country chairman Ed Chua told reporters the company had fully complied with the high tribunals decision but had yet to decide on what to do with the dismantled area. We have to comply with the Supreme Court ruling. We will have to import lubricants, Chua said earlier. Shell lubricants account for about 20 percent of the companys total business in the Philippines, he said.
The Supreme Court required Petron Corp., Chevron Caltex and Shell, or the so-called big 3 oil companies, to remove the oil depot facilities in Pandacan, Manila, and not merely to cease operations.
The Pandacan oil depot, which started as a small facility in 1914, sits on 33 hectares of land by the Pasig River. Shell established facilities there in 1914. Caltex began using the Pandacan warehouse depot in 1917, when it started marketing its products in the Philippines. Petron followed suit in 1922.
Shell owns a 110,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Batangas which was recently upgraded to allow the production of Euro 4-compliant fuels.
