San Miguel to invest $25-B for oil, natural gas

MANILA, Philippines – Diversified conglomerate San Miguel Corp. is looking to invest as much as $25 billion into an upstream oil and gas exploration project abroad.  

In a press conference on Wednesday, March 6, San Miguel president and chief operating officer Ramon Ang said the diversified conglomerate is willing to diversify into the oil and natural gas exploration business due to its revenue potential.

Ang said San Miguel could divest its interest in power generation through SMC Global Holdings Power Corp. to raise the amount. SMC Global has a combined capacity of 7,000 megawatts valued between $5 billion and $6 billion.

San Miguel is currently the biggest private group that is producing power in the country. 

“If we had the money right now, we will buy an oil field and natural gas field and nothing less than that. If we are able to transfer investments to [the] oil field, the growth of this company would be unimaginable. It (would be) like printing money forever,” Ang said. 

“Even without selling anything, we can afford it. We have no decision yet to sell anything,” Ang said.

Ang said the diversified conglomerate is also looking at listing the shares of SMC Global Power at the Philippines Stock Exchange (PSE) as well as entertaining offers for a possible sell-off 2013.

He added other parties like Kirin Holdings Co Ltd of Japan have expressed interest in acquiring the company’s 51% interest in San Miguel Brewery Inc. that has a value of around $11 billion.

The brewery business was delisted from the stock exchange after failing to meet public ownership rules. 

“If we are to sell anything, it means we are ready to buy something,” Ang said.

In mid-2010, San Miguel expressed interest to venture into oil and gas exploration in Indonesia with Merukh Corp.’s potential oil block in Rote island and gas in Sabu island, East Nusa Tenggara province.

A rival, businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan, leads Forum Energy Plc and Philex Petroleum Corp., which are both invested in the oil and gas exploration project near the disputed Spratly’s Island under Service Contract (SC) 72. – Rappler.com