Despite challenges to the global and local business communities triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, South Pacific Inc., a 100% Filipino-owned LPG company, has posted robust numbers in the first half of 2020.
Gross sales were up by 27% or Php 7.75 billion up from Php 6.1 billion in 2019. Profit growth also registered a 13% uptick at Php 600 million. Volume growth was steady, surging at 34% compared to 143,000 metric tons in the same period last year. Strong VisMin operations and expansion efforts augmented the rise.
Because of its resiliency in the first half, SPI president Jun Golingay expressed optimism that SPI will achieve steady growth levels, based on its sustained performance that made it clinch third biggest market share in barely five years after joining the industry.
The company attributes its resilience amid the crisis to the fact that LPG remains to be a staple in most Filipino households. Initial challenges of transport were likewise quickly addressed. “Our supply has also remained stable despite the pandemic. Distribution of LPG to our customers encountered some hurdles at the start of the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) at first, but when quarantine was eased and the truck ban was lifted, LPG transport ran smoothly”, says Golingay.
SPI’s terminal in Mandaue City, Cebu started operations last January 2019 with 2×1,000MT storage capacity. Expansion is in full swing. Located inside Arctura Petroterminal in Mandaue City, SPI Cebu Terminal operations will be similar to that of Calaca, selling products to bulk customers. It will be serving not only the Island of Cebu, but as well as neighboring islands such as Negros, Bohol, Samar, and Leyte. The North Hub terminal in San Simon Pampanga Industrial Zone boasts of a 3 X 100 MT storage capacity.
The assurance that product supply would be sustained despite changing levels of quarantine contributed to the company’s steady sales. Consumer confidence was also boosted by the company’s handling of its operations early on in the crisis. Being a part of the energy sector, the company made sure that it implemented and complied with operational requirements and procedures of the IATF when it came to its manpower. Operations went unhampered because the company provided service vehicles to continually transport manpower from their homes to the workplaces. At present, SPI has eleven fully-commissioned and operational surface-mounted storage plants with a total capacity of 22,000 metric tons.
Even before the global health crisis, SPI has already been building on its long term competitive advantages. SPI at the start of its operation last 2015, has already anticipated the extreme challenge of managing transport of its products, hence from the onset the company invested on the creation of its own Logistics Team that will handle transport of its product from its terminal to customers site.
With SPI’s direct management and control of its fleet of bulk LPG trucks and its large facility gives the company an edge in terms of supply and sustained distribution to its consumers. SPI aims to construct five more terminals in the Southern islands of the Philippines.