The newspaper quoted Artasith Pothiapinyanvisuth, executive vice president for commercial and international marketing at PTT, as saying in Bangkok late last month the company would spend about

8 million Philippine pesos (Bt5.8 million) per retail petrol station, depending on the size of the facility.

He said they were not yet at liberty to identify the proposed locations for the stations but hinted they would be situated in major cities on Luzon and in the Visayas island group.

Artasith said the company would also build a mega-station along the Clark Expressway.

PTT considers the Philippines one of its focus areas for Southeast Asian investment.

Earlier, PTT Philippines president and CEO Siripong Phoungpaka assured the Philippine government that

the Thai oil giant would continue expanding its retail network there this year as part of its optimism regarding the prospects of that country's oil industry.

PTT had earlier pledged to spend 5 billion pesos over five years starting last year.

To date, PTT Philippines

has 16 petrol stations. In the next five to 10 years, it expects to open 100-200 more nationwide.

Siripong said the firm also wanted to introduce a new style of service station similar

to the "one-stop shop" stations in Thailand, which also have unique features like banking facilities in addition to the usual offerings.