Puma Energy International, the fuel retail and storage company spun off from commodity trader Trafigura Pte Ltd., is building a $100 million facility in Myanmar and seeking other deals in the once-isolated Asian country that’s opening to more foreign investment after elections this month.
The storage tank facilities for bitumen and petroleum products at Thilawa Port, 23 kilometers (14 miles) south of the capital, Rangoon, will have a capacity of about 97,000 cubic meters. Based in Singapore and with major operations in Geneva, Puma is the first foreign company granted permission to build oil storage facilities in Myanmar, Chief Financial Officer Denis Chazarain said in an interview.
“It is a really promising market,” he said of Myanmar, the Southeast Asian nation that suffered a half-century of isolation under a military junta. Puma is targeting potential retail service station deals as well as lubricants, marine fuel and wholesale markets, he added.
Puma is one of 11 foreign companies that have applied for a government tender to form a joint-venture with state-owned Myanma Petrochemical Products Enterprise for a liquid petroleum gas distribution business. LPG is a staple fuel used for cooking in Myanmar, positioned on a potentially key trade route between China and India.
“Puma Energy is interested in all segments of the market in Myanmar,” Chazarain said.
Myanmar’s voters last week handed Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition party an overwhelming majority, giving her a free hand to choose the next president and push through legislation. Investors and foreign companies, including Puma, are seeking details of the Nobel laureate’s plan to attract investment needed to spur economic growth, create jobs and boost wages. The nation’s military still controls two of the nation’s biggest conglomerates, which invest in everything from mining to banking.
Puma already has an exclusive agreement to be the sole foreign distributor of jet fuel in Myanmar as part of a joint venture with MPPE. Puma has invested about $50 million in the aviation venture, Chazarain said.
Mozambique Expansion
Trafigura, the third-largest independent oil trader, is the biggest shareholder in closely held Puma with a 49 percent stake. Jonathan Pegler, Trafigura’s co-head of crude oil, is returning to Geneva from Singapore to become Puma’s global head of supply and trade. He will be responsible for sourcing products and oil for Puma’s growing network of 88 terminals in 46 countries.
Puma officially opened two new terminals in Mozambique on Thursday, the company said in a statement. The 115,000 cubic-meter Matola bitumen and fuel terminals bring the company’s total capacity in Mozambique to 275,500 cubic meters, making it Puma’s second-largest storage site in Africa.
Chazarain said he expects the company’s sales volumes to be about 20 million cubic meters this year. The company executed a series of recent acquisitions including the purchase of Murphy Oil’s shuttered Milford Haven facility in the U.K., which it has converted to storage. It also purchased BP Plc’s bitumen business in Australia and its regional jet fuel business in Puerto Rico.
Those deals helped Puma increase third-quarter pretax earnings by 5 percent to $177 million, the company said earlier this week.