Caltex Stops 24-Hour Service To Cut Costs

Due to high operating costs, all Caltex gas stations will officially close at midnight from today on, end­ing what has been several years of 24-hour service, Caltex an­nounced this week.

“Caltex Cambodia Limited has re­­cently revised its operating hours for all Caltex petrol service stations in Cambodia after reviewing the current tariff for public utilities,” the company said in a statement.

Caltex spokesman Pich Chetra de­clined this week to say how much Caltex, a division of US pet­ro­leum giant Chevron, will likely save from the early closing of its ap­proximately 30 stations.

Debashish Sanyal, finance and ad­ministration manager at rival pe­troleum company Total Gas, said To­tal is also reviewing the price of elec­tricity’s impact on late night op­erating hours.

“With the rising price of electricity and of oil it is a concern,” he said, adding that Total does not ex­pect to profit greatly from the Cal­tex decision.

Two of 20 Total stations will re­main open all night-starting today, which will make them the only 24 hour stations in Cambodia.

Beginning this month, the Elec­tri­city Authority of Cambodia al­lowed Electricite du Cambodge to raise electricity prices in Phnom Penh by 11 percent for individuals and to begin charging small businesses $0.036 per kilowatt hour above distribution costs.

Ty Norin, director of the Elec­tri­city Authority of Cambodia, on Wed­nesday referred questions on the impact of rising electricity pri­ces on Caltex’s 24-hour operation to Electricite du Cambodge.

Electricite du Cambodge Di­rec­tor General Tan Kim Vin referred questions to the Electricity Author­ity of Cambodia.

“The EAC sets the price and sent it to the government. We only carry out the policy,” he said.

Employees at the Norodom Boul­evard Caltex station near In­de­pendence Monument said that early closing would not affect business as few customers arrived be­tween midnight and 5 am.

The station has not had a midnight to 5 am service since a Sept 14 shooting when two employees were injured, staff said Wednes­day, adding that the incident had not frightened them from working late night shifts.

“We do not know why they clos­ed the stations at night, we were not scared,” one former night work­er said.