Overview Petron Corporation is the largest oil refining and marketing company in thePhilippines, supplying more than a third

of the countrys oil requirements. Petron operates a refinery in Limay, Bataan, with a rated capacity of 180,000 barrels per day (29,000 m3/d). From the refinery, Petron moves their products mainly by sea to 32 depots and terminals in the country. They operate a state-of-the-art lube oil blending plant at their PandacanTerminal, where it manufactures lubes and greases. Petron is publicly-listed. Up until recently, the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC) and theAramco Overseas Company B.V. each owns a 40% share of equity, with the remaining 20% is held by close to 190,000 individual stockholders. In 2008, Saudi Aramco sold its entire stake to London-listed investment group Ashmore Group, through SEA Refinery Holdings BV. Then SEA added 11 percent more stake in Petron when Ashmore made a required tender offer to other shareholders, for a total 51 percent stake. In December 2008, Ashmore acquired PNOC's 40 percent stake in Petron. It subsequently sold its 51 percent stake to local food and beverage giant San Miguel Corporation (SMC). Ashmore retains 40 percent. The remaining sharesabout 9 percentare held by the public. History Petron's history dates back to September 7, 1933 when the Socony Vacuum Oil Company of New York and the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey formed the Standard Vacuum Oil Company (Stanvac). The end of the venture in the early 1960s split the marketing and refining interests of the company between Esso and Mobil. In 1953 the government, partly to promote Claro M. Recto's national industrialization programme and partly to respond to increasing international oil prices, attempted to launch a national oil company that caters Filipino consumers with cheap oil. Thus, FilOil, the first Philippine oil company was established. In 1973, Esso sold its business to the government which became the Philippine National Oil Company (or PNOC). Subsequently, Mobil also sold its share of the refinery to PNOC. The oil refining and marketing units in PNOC, along with FilOil, were eventually merged to form Petrophil, which was later renamed as Petron. Today the company's industrial earnings have never seen such high gains but still trade within the average global yield. Presently, CEO Ross Arroyo leads the 18th-ranked Philippine Oil Co. within the Eastern Hemisphere.

As part of the government's privatization program, PNOC sought a strategic partner that would give Petron a reliable supply of oil, plus access to state-of-the-art refining technology. The result was a partnership with the world's largest oil producer, Saudi Aramco. On February 3, 1994, PNOC and Aramco Overseas Company BV signed a share purchase agreement that gave both a 40% stake in Petron. The remaining 20% of Petron shares were sold to the public. On August 11, 2006, Petron responded to the biggest oil spill in the Philippines as a tanker (Solar 1) carrying fuel oil sank in Southern Guimaras. The company took the moral and social responsibility and immediately spearheaded a massive clean-up and relief operation. In less than three months, the shores of Guimaras were cleaned. At present, Petron has built a school and a Library Hub on the island and has rolled out several livelihood (seaweed farming, mariculture farming, etc.) programs on the island. On July, 2008, Petron Corp. said London-listed investment group Ashmore Group, through SEA Refinery Holdings BV, had acquired 50.57 percent of its stock. [1] Ashmore's payment was made on December, 2008. On December, 2008, San Miguel Corporation said it was in the final stages of negotiations with British investment fund Ashmore Group for an option to buy up to 50.1 percent of the latters stake in oil giant Petron Corp. Headquarters Located at the heart of Buendia Avenue in Makati City, the company's headquarters, the Petron Megaplaza, is a 45-storey building with floor plate area of about 15,512 square meters, which was the Philippines' tallest building before being topped by the PBCom Tower in Ayala Avenue. VISION, MISSION, & VALUES To be the leading provider of total customer solutions in the energy sector and its derivative businesses. We will achieve this by: Being an integral part of our customers' lives, delivering consistent customer experience through innovative products and services; Developing strategic partnership in pursuit of growth and opportunity; Leveraging our refining assets to achieve competitive advantage; Fostering an entrepreneurial culture that encourages teamwork, innovation and

excellence; Caring for community and the environment; Conducting ourselves with professionalism, integrity and fairness; Promoting the best interest of all our stakeholders.

RELATED LITERATURE
PETRON POSTS P3.4 BILLION NET INCOME FOR 1ST QUARTER OF 2011 Industry leader Petron Corporation reported a net income of P3.4 billion for the first three months of the year boosted by a substantial increase in export sales volumes and strong prices abroad of petrochemicals such as propylene, benzene, mixed xylene, and toluene. Total export sales increased by nearly 60% to 1.38 million barrels in the first quarter compared to only 867,000 barrels over the same period in 2010. Petrochemical export volumes also increased by 32% to 774,000 barrels. The increase in the price of feedstock (crude oil) of petrochemicals led to attractive prices for benzene, toluene, and xylene while supply tightness in propylene enabled Petron to capture incremental margins from its production streams. Domestic demand decreased as oil consumption weakened caused by high local fuel prices. Despite this drop, the company was able to increase market share to 38.6% as of February of this year from 37.8% at the end of 2010. Sales revenues increased to P64.05 billion in the first quarter of this year from P55.88 billion over the same period in 2010. Our strong operating performance is a result of our strategy to further diversify into the high-margin, high-value petrochemicals business, Petron Chairman and CEO Ramon S. Ang said, We were also able to follow through on significant business initiatives during the first few months of 2011 which is expected to ensure stability of supply for the country. In February, Petron commissioned its polypropylene (PP) plant in Mariveles, Bataan. The PP plant has the initial capacity to produce up to 160,000 metric tons of polypropylene annually. Acquired in the middle of last year, the plant was rehabilitated and is now on-stream. Petron will now realize more margins derived from converting its propylene production from its Bataan refinery into polypropylene resin. Recently, the company unveiled its biggest and most ambitious investment to date-the Refinery Expansion Project (RMP-2). The project-which is targeted for completion by 2014-will enhance the countrys supply security since it will give Petron more flexibility to digest a wider array of crude oil types. Upon RMP-2s completion, Petron will be the only oil company capable of locally

producing fuels that will meet the global clean air standard of the future - Euro 5 - thus improving air quality in the country. RMP-2 supports greater product demand as the economy grows and will reduce finished product imports which now stand at 40% of total demand. It will also allow Petron to significantly increase its petrochemical production so that local industries no longer need to import this requirement and use the countrys dollar reserves. The decision to undertake this massive project was not an easy one. In the end, however, our strong desire and commitment to ensure the countrys oil supply security and contribute to nation-building won out, Mr. Ang concluded.

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE The independent variable is the element that is subject to arbitrary (not random) change, in order to test the results. For example: If the objective were to test audience response to headline copy, keeping all other factors equal, the sample audience would be subjected to different headline copy to determine the effectiveness of the various headlines. The audience response would be dependent on the stimulus provided-in this case the copy; therefore, the headline copy would be considered the independent variable when it came time to chart the results. Every experiment has at least two types of variables: an independent and dependent. An independent variable is the variable that the researchers systematically manipulate in the experiment. An independent variable is measured, manipulated, or selected by the experimenter to determine its relationship to an observed phenomenon. This might be a variable that you control, like a treatment, or a variable not under your control, like an exposure. It also might represent a demographic factor like age or gender. While the independent variable is often manipulated by the researcher, it can also be a classification where subjects are assigned to groups. In a study where one variable causes the other, the independent variable is the cause. In a study where groups are being compared, the independent variable is the group classification. In a research to demonstrate the increasing alcohol consumption during pregnancy actually causes a reduction in birth weight, researchers randomly assigned 50 pregnant rat either to an experimental group or to a control group. The 25 rats in the experimental group had bottles filled in with mixture of pure water and alcohol, 25 rats in the control group had bottles with water. Other than this, researchers treated all rats as much alike as possible. Aim was to have the two groups differ systematically along only one variable: alcohol versus pure water. This is independent variable; idea was to manipulate this variable independently of other factors such as diet that might affect pregnancy. In this example, birth weight is the dependent variable that is it represents the outcome that we measure, an outcome that is dependent on the manipulation of the independent variable. With experiments, then, researchers systematically manipulate the independent variable to determine if it causes a difference in the dependent variable. There are three ways to manipulate independent variables: presence or absence technique, amount technique and type technique. In presence or absence technique, the independent variable can be manipulated can be manipulated by presenting a condition or treatment to one group of individuals and withholding the condition or treatment from another group of individuals. In amount technique, the independent variable can be manipulated by varying the amount of a condition or variable such as the amount of a drug which is given to children within a learning disorder. In type

technique, the independent variable is to vary the type of the condition or treatment administered. In an experiment, a dependent variable is the factor which is observed and measured to determine the effect of the independent variable, that is, that factor that appears, disappears, or varies as the experimenter introduces, removes, or varies the independent variable. The dependent variable is the participants response. The dependent variable is the outcome of experiment. In an experiment, it may be what was caused of what changed as a result of the study, in a comparison of groups; it is what they differ on. In research study on rats, described in previous paragraph, the experimental group is exposed to alcohol, and the control group is not. If we observe that the rat pups in the groups differ reliably in birth weight, and then we can conclude alcohol exposure caused this difference. In this example birth weight is a dependent variable. In an experiment, the independent variable is the variable that is varied or manipulated by the researcher, and the dependent variable is the response that is measured. An independent variable is the presumed cause, whereas the dependent variable is the presumed effect. The independent variable is the antecedent, whereas the dependent variable is the consequent. In experiments, the independent variable is the variable that is controlled and manipulated by the experimenter; whereas the dependent variable is not manipulated, instead the dependent variable is observed or measured for variation as a presumed result of the variation in the dependent variable. Dependent variables can be influence by controlled variables. A Dependent Variable is a well-designed experiment normally incorporate one or two independent variables, with every other possible factor eliminated, or controlled. There may be more than two dependent variables in any experiment. For example, a researcher might wish to establish the effect of temperature on the rate of plant growth; temperature is the independent variable. They could regard growth as height, weight, number of fruits produced, or all of these. A whole range of dependent variables arises from one independent variable. INTERVENING VARIABLE
An intervening variable is a hypothetical internal state that is used to explain relationships between observed variables, such as independent and dependent variables, in empirical research.

An intervening variable facilitates a better understanding of the relationship between the independent and dependent variables when the variables appear to not have a definite connection. They are studied by means of operational definitions and have no existence apart. For example, an independent variable in a study on latent learning in rats is the number of

practice trials received. Each rat receives an increasing number of trials, as one trial is given per day. The dependent variable is the number of wrong turns (errors) the rats make on a trial. As time, and number of practice trials, increases, the number of errors decreases. Theoretically, an internal state of learning intervened between the independent and dependent variables. It was this state that caused the errors to decrease, not the practice trials. Other examples of intervening variables include: motivation, intelligence, intention, and expectation.

Stock Data: Current Price (9/23/2011): 13.40 (Figures in Philippine Pesos) Petron Corporation Key Data: Ticker: Exchanges: PCOR PHL

Recent Stock Performance: 1 Week -11.6% 13 Weeks 4 Weeks -0.3% 52 Weeks

-12.1% 103.0%

Country: Major Industry: Sub Industry:

PHILIPPINES Oil, Gas, Coal & Related Services Oil Refiners & Distributors 1,317

2010 Sales

229,094,000,000

Employees:

(Year Ending Jan 2011). Currency: Fiscal Yr Ends: Share Type: References: http://www.petron.com/aboutus.asp http://www.petron.com/newsroom.asp http://www.allbusiness.com/glossaries/independent-variable/4943682-1.html http://businessmanagement.wordpress.com/2008/03/16/the-research-processindependent-and-dependent-variables/ http://www.corporateinformation.com/Company-Snapshot.aspx?cusip=C608C1060 http://www.experiment-resources.com/dependent-variable.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervening_variable Philippine Pesos December Common Market Cap: Shares Outstanding: 125,626,400,260 9,375,104,497

Closely Held Shares: 8,676,212,221