THE government will announce Monday if it will exercise an option to buy Saudi Aramco’s 40 percent stake in oil refiner Petron Corp, the president of the Philippine National Oil Co. said yesterday.

"We will meet on Monday and announce our decision that day," said Antonio Cailao. "Nothing is final yet."

PNOC has the first option to buy the stake and has until Monday to exercise that option.

Petron, the Philippines’ largest domestic refining company with a network of about 1,200 service stations, is 40 percent owned by PNOC and 40 percent by Aramco. The rest is held by individual investors.

Saudi Aramco, state oil firm of the world’s biggest oil exporter, has received an offer of $550 million for its Petron stake from London-based investment fund Ashmore Group.

Finance officials have said government could unlikely match the offer and might even sell its own 40 percent stake at a later date.

JG Summit Petrochemical Corp, controlled by the Gokongwei family which also owns the country’s second biggest airline Cebu Pacific, has offered to buy the government’s shares in Petron for $579 million.

The offer from JG Summit Petrochemical Corp values Petron at P6.55 per share, about a 9.2 percent premium to its closing price of P6 yesterday.

Sen. Manuel Roxas II on Thursday said government should exercise its option of first refusal and look for a strategic investor, noting reports that PNOC can assign the option to another party.

He said if government decides not to exercise the option, it should tell the people why.