PTT Plc, the national oil and gas conglomerate, plans to revise its investment budget for 2019-23, expecting to increase spending after noting many potential assets for future acquisition.
"The new revised budget has yet to be considered by the board of directors, but they will convene tomorrow," said Chansin Treenuchagron, PTT's president and chief executive.
He said the company has found several viable projects in addition to allocating a greater budget for the acquisition of new assets, covering upstream, midstream and downstream sectors.
Earlier, PTT planned to earmark 167 billion baht for the 2019-23 budget. Of the total, PTT would allocate 61% or 101.9 billion baht for subsidiaries and joint ventures.
Of the total budget, 23% would go for gas and transmission, while the remainder would go on downstream, technology and engineering.
The budget included PTT companies, calculated by the ownership percentage. Some 45% of the five-year investment would focus on the compressed natural gas business.
In addition, the 167-billion-baht budget was part of PTT's plan to allocate almost 355 billion baht during 2019-23. The plan was announced to the Stock Exchange of Thailand last December.
The remaining 187.62 billion baht would serve as PTT's provisional investment budget (20 billion baht), mainly to expand the core business of liquefied natural gas (LNG) value chains and invest in new S-curve industries.
In the first half of 2019, subsidiary PTT Exploration and Production Plc (PTTEP) acquired several petroleum fields at home and abroad.
A major acquisition was the deal with US-based Murphy Oil Corporation, running exploration and production (E&P) activities in Malaysia. PTTEP completed the purchase of $2.13 billion as Murphy Oil plans to leave its oil and gas operations in Southeast Asia.
On Monday, PTTEP announced the completion of the purchase of all shares of Portugal-based Partex Holding BV in a deal worth $622 million.
Partex is operating E&P activities in Oman and other oil and gas projects in five countries.
Moreover, PTTEP and the consortium will make a final investment decision on Mozambique's Rovuma Offshore Area 1, which will be one of the world's largest LNG resources.
For the midstream and downstream businesses of PTT subsidiaries, Global Power Synergy Plc (GPSC) is investing in a new energy storage system in the country. The project won investment incentives from the government.
GPSC is completing a takeover of Glow Energy Plc with plans to become one of the largest power producers by capacity in the country.
Meanwhile, Thai Oil Plc is developing the Clean Fuel Project for upgrading oil refinery units in Sri Racha, Chon Buri.