Thai Tap Water prices IPO at Bt4.20

Institutional investors oversubscribed to the 600 million shares allocated to them by five times.

The shares will start trading on the Stock Exchange of Thailand on May 22.

Shell hikes prices

Shell will raise diesel and petrol prices by a whopping 80 satang a litre today after losing Bt600 million so far this year.

Simon Hirst, general manager for retail sales and operations, said yesterday that even as global oil prices have spiked in the past five days, Shell is suffering a negative marketing margin of Bt4.20 a litre for diesel and Bt1.50 for petrol.

Although the steep price increase could hurt sales, it is unavoidable due to the huge losses, he said, adding fuel consumption could drop 7 per cent on year due to the high prices.

PTTAR on track

PTT Aromatics and Refining's aromatics capacity expansion will be completed in September as planned.

The project will double its annual capacity to 2.2 million tonnes, president Chainoi Puankosoom said yesterday.

The refining capacity increase from 215,000 barrels per day to 280,000 would be completed next January.

BAM to seek fund

Bualuang Asset Management will soon apply to the Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to create a private fund next quarter. The process includes the transfer of the private fund portfolio managed by Bangkok Bank to its unit, Bualuang Asset Management.