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Risk Management

Risk Management Framework and Process

Petron follows an enterprise-wide risk management framework for identifying, mapping and addressing the risk factors that affect or may affect its businesses.

The Company’s risk management process is a bottom-up approach, with each division mandated to conduct regular assessment of its risk profile and formulate action plans for managing identified risks.

As Petron’s operation is an integrated value chain, risks emanate from every process and some can cut across divisions. The results of these activities flow up to the Management Committee and eventually the Board through the Company’s annual Business Planning process.

Oversight and technical assistance is likewise provided by corporate units with special duties.  The Risk and Insurance Management Group is mandated with the overall coordination and development of the enterprise-wide risk management process.  The International Trade Finance Section of the Treasurers Department is in charge of foreign exchange hedging transactions.  The Transaction Management Unit of the Controller’s Department provides backroom support for all financial transactions.  The Corporate Technical & Engineering Services Group oversees compliance with the domestic and international standards set for health, safety and environment.  The Internal Audit Department is tasked with the implementation of a risk-based auditing. Commodity price risk is a major area being managed by the Commodity Risk Management Department (“CRMD”) of the Supply Division, under the guidance of the Commodity Risk Management Committee (“CRMC”) composed of cross-functional senior and middle management.  The CRMC oversees the long-term and short-term commodity hedging program which includes risk assessment, authorized hedging instruments and hedging tenor.  Hedging strategies are developed by the CRMD which also monitors commodity risks, sets controls, and ensures that risk management activities stay within the board-approved limits and parameters approved by CRMC. PSTPL executes the hedging strategies involving crude and product imports and exports on behalf of the Company.

Major Risks

The Company classifies a risk as a major risk if it assesses the risk event to both have a relatively high probability of occurring and a substantial adverse impact on the Company if the risk would occur. The major risks that the Company managed in 2017 were substantially the same as those in the previous year since there were no fundamental changes in the nature of the Company’s operations. These risks were the following:

  • Foreign exchange risk arises from the difference in the denomination of majority of revenues in Philippine Pesos against that for the bulk of costs in US Dollars. In addition, the Group’s exposure to foreign exchange risks also arises from US dollar-denominated sales and purchases, principally of crude oil and petroleum products. Further, for the Petron Malaysia Companies, whose transactions are in Malaysian ringgit which is subsequently converted into US dollar before ultimately being translated to equivalent Philippine peso amount using applicable rates for the purpose of consolidation, changes in the foreign exchange rates of the Malaysian Ringgit and the US Dollar would result in the revaluation of key assets and liabilities, and could subsequently lead to financial losses for the Company.
  • The risk of substantial disruptions in the Company’s operations caused by accidents, process or machinery failure, human error or adverse events outside of human control. This risk could also include delays in the implementation of capital expansion activities. These disruptions may result in injury or loss of life, as well as financial losses should these disruptions lead to product run-outs, facility shutdown, equipment repair or replacement, insurance cost escalation and/or unplanned inventory build-up.
  • Profit margin and cash flow risk arising from fluctuations in the relative prices of input crude oil and output oil and petrochemical products. Changes in output and input prices, particularly when mismatched, may produce significant cash flow variability and may cause disruptions in the Company’s supply chain, as well as higher financing expenses.
  • Regulatory risk, arising from changes in national and local government policies and regulations that may result in substantial financial and other costs for the Company, either directly or indirectly.

Except as covered by the above mentioned specific risks, the Company has determined that none of the risk factors faced by any of its subsidiaries would be a major risk. These risk factors either have a low probability of occurring or have an insignificant potential impact. Thus, while subsidiary-specific risks were considered in the risk management process, these are considered relatively minor.

Management of Major Risks

Foreign exchange risk

  • The Company hedges its dollar-denominated liabilities using forwards, other derivative instruments and the generation of dollar-denominated sales. It avoids the creation of risk from derivative speculation by limiting the use of derivative instruments up to 100% of the value of the underlying dollar-denominated liabilities net of dollar-denominated assets.
  • Dollar-denominated assets and liabilities and the resulting potential foreign exchange losses are recorded on a daily basis through an enterprise resource planning software that monitors financial transactions. This allows real-time awareness and response to contain losses posed by foreign exchange exposure. Such software is also capable of tracking risk exposures arising from other market sensitive financial variables, such as interest rates and commodity prices.

 

Risk of operational disruptions

  • The risk of operational disruptions is most relevant to the refining unit since disruptions in these units can have severe and rippling effects.
  • The Company maintains insurance whose coverage includes property, marine cargo and third party liability, as well as personal injury, accidental death and dismemberment, sabotage and terrorism, machinery breakdown and business interruption.  One of the main insurance policies of the Company, the Industrial All Risk policy, covers the Petron Bataan Refinery for material damages, including from machinery breakdown and business interruption.
  • The Refinery Division and the Petron Malaysia Companies have been implementing programs designed to directly promote the avoidance of operational disruptions through effective maintenance practices and the inculcation of a culture of safety and continuous process improvement.
  • The Company has a corporate-wide health, safety and environment program that likewise addresses the risk of operational disruptions.
  • The Company has put together a Corporate Safety Management System, the main reference of all safety management systems in the Company, which is based mainly on OHSAS 18001. In addition, the Petron Bataan Refinery and some of the Company’s terminals and service stations have implemented third party-certified management systems. The Petron Bataan Refinery successfully passed the latest version of the international standard of Quality Management System (ISO 9001 Version 2015) and Environmental Management System (ISO-14001 Version 2015),  while   maintaining the  Health and Safety Management System (OHSAS – 18001 Version 2007) in July 2017. Twenty-six terminals have already been certified under the new ISO 9001:2015 (QMS) and ISO 14001:2015 (EMS) standards. Four (4) remaining terminals are scheduled to migrate to 2015 standards within 2018.
  • Furthermore, all 17 terminals with pier facilities are compliant with the International Ship and Port Facility Security (“ISPS”) code certified by the Office of the Transportation Security under the Department of Transportation. ISPS certification is a requirement by the International Maritime Organization of the United Nations for all international vessels calling on international ports and for all ports accepting international vessels. The Company’s shipping ports for both domestic and international vessels are ISPS-certified.

 

Profit margin and cash flow risk

  • Margin hedging strategies are used in order to eliminate the risk of profit margin compression due to changes in crude and product prices.  A margin hedge simultaneously fixes the future dollar prices of Dubai crude oil and that of a selected product manufactured from the crude. This partially locks in the refining margin of the Company.
  • Price exposures are managed through commodity hedging to counter abrupt and significant drops in prices resulting in inventory losses on both crude and petroleum products. Considering that the Company keeps crude and product inventories, any drop in price affects profit margin.
  • The Company endeavors to arrange long-term contracts for some of its fuel and petrochemical products whenever these are financially attractive.  Long-term sales contracts provide a partial hedge on future cash flow uncertainty.
  • The Company uses cash flow projection software that enables it to proactively respond to potential future cash flow imbalances. It likewise maintains access to credit lines in excess of typical requirements so that funds can be readily tapped in case of a cash flow squeeze.

 

Regulatory risk

  • The Company maintains strong lines of communication with its various counterparties in government and in the public arena, in both local and national levels. The Company uses these lines of communication to identify potential risk factors and respond to these in a proactive manner.
  • The Company remains compliant with the various environmental standards set by the government.