New CEO wants PTT to be 'Pride of Thailand'

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ENERGY
New CEO wants PTT to be 'Pride of Thailand'
Pichaya Changsorn


Tevin

BANGKOK: -- New PTT chief executive Tevin Vongvanich yesterday outlined his "three-year aspirations" to transform the state-controlled energy giant to become a "pride and treasure of Thailand".

Amid the prolonged slump in world energy prices and the energy conglomerate's tarnished image at home, Tevin, former CEO of PTT's upstream petroleum arm PTT Exploration and Production, announced his plans to transform PTT into a more transparent organisation and to restructure the portfolio of its businesses.

"[We will] reorganise our business portfolio to become more clear-cut and transparent, and review it if we have too diverse a range of businesses and divest more, in addition to the [oil palm] plantation that we have already decided to leave," he said.

Predicting world oil prices to stay low at about US$50 a barrel for quite some time, Tevin said PTT would focus on growing through mergers and acquisitions, especially of upstream energy businesses, in which plenty of opportunities to acquire discounted assets have emerged.

"Organic growth will take at least three or four years" to show results, he said.

Tevin will be in the CEO post for three years before reaching his 60-years retirement age in 2018.

Because of the slower growth of the domestic natural-gas supply, PTT's gas business will have to grow through building new pipeline systems and LNG facilities to serve imported liquefied natural gas, while looking for opportunities to invest in an integrated natural-gas and petrochemical complex abroad.

The group is also looking into expanding its petrochemical business to the United States, to exploit cheap feedstock there.

It is also planning to expand and franchise out its non-oil retail business (such as the Amazon coffee shops) and its fuel-retailing business overseas.

To achieve the "pride and treasure of Thailand" goal, PTT will strive for "10 quick-wins". These comprise five strategies to gain "pride" (stakeholders management road map, strength from inside, team of alliances and rivals, social enterprise, and business transparency) and five strategies to become the "treasure" (maintain gas-supply stability, portfolio restructuring, business competitiveness through operational excellence, regional brands with strategic partners, and leadership succession).

Tevin said he would also attempt to find new growth drivers for PTT, which has historically grown from being a resource-based enterprise, since domestic resources are depleting, but he is not sure if he could do that before his three-year tenure ends.

The PTT chief said he could not reveal specific figures about PTT's revised investment and business plans before he submitted them to the government in December. Nevertheless, the businesses that it will shed will be less than 10 per cent of its total assets.

Tevin took charge on September 10.

PTT, like most other energy authorities, has come under heavy criticism from some activist groups over the past several years, whose protests forced it to shut down its Bangkok headquarters for several months last year.

PTT alone, not counting its listed subsidiaries, has a total market-capitalisation value exceeding Bt685 billion.

During the first half of this year, PTT reported a consolidated net profit of Bt46.33 billion, a decrease of 20 per cent from a year ago, and total sales revenue of Bt1.05 trillion, down 21.8 per cent from the same period last year. A major factor was a 46.2-per-cent drop in the Dubai crude-oil price, from the $105.30-a-barrel average for the January-to-June 2014 period to a $56.60 average for the first two quarters of this year.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/New-CEO-wants-PTT-to-be-Pride-of-Thailand-30269982.html


-- The Nation 2015-10-02

[canopus1969]

"Pride and Treasure of Thailand"

So that's what PTT stands for

[Srikcir]

"transform the state-controlled energy giant to become a "pride and treasure of Thailand"

Private shareholders might prefer it become the pride and treasure of their stock ownership (PTS).

[bamnutsak]

Would that be "PoT"?

State-owned (majority) and managed businesses just do so well, don't they.