SURIGAO DEL SUR (Mindanao Examiner / 12 May) – Oil giant Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation (PSPC) launched what it said could be the cheapest and durable and cost-effective road treatment product.
Called the Instapave, it said the new product may solve and reduce the cost needed in rehabilitating 78 percent of all unpaved road in the Philippines which had hampered the development of many areas.
Jacqueline Cesar dela Cruz, PSPC's Instapave manager, said the product – result of a long research and studies by experts - is 34 percent cheaper than asphalt and 50 percent more economical that concrete pavement.
“Using it is to save more money and the savings means more projects to implement,” she told the Mindanao Examiner.
She said compared to ordinary asphalt and concrete roads, the Instapave is also environment-friendly since it uses water based solutions instead of oil-base products.
”Our innovation is part of our social responsibility to help alleviate the lives of the Filipino people by giving the government the best choice to pave and rehabilitate roads using the Instapave,” Dela Cruz said.
She said Instapave, which means “Instant Pavement,” was conceptualized two years ago by PSPC and is aimed at improving and strengthening the surface condition of existing gravel or concrete or asphalt pavements, such as national, rural and farm-to-market roads.
“The Instapave application also prevents global warming since it would not emit bad smoke and air pollution,” she added.
Dela Cruz said the Instapave is now very popular in the United States and Thailand and has been used in Puerto Puerto Prinsesa City in Palawan province.
She said the new product has also been in the town of Tago in Surigao del Sur province and officials were amazed by how it saved the local government money. The town also served as the first pilot area in Mindanao to use the Instapave product.
“We chose Tago town in Surigao del Sur as the first pilot area in the Mindanao since the local chief executives of the town is very much optimistic and receptive of using Instapave,” Dela Cruz said.
The town’s mayor, Hermenegildo Pimentel, said they tried Instapave product on two kilometers of road and the project saved the local government some P5 million. The project was also finished ahead of its scheduled completion, he said.
“I have only spent some P3.5 million in the project using the Instapave instead of the P8 million we usually spend in ordinary asphalt road project or roughly P20 million in savings on concrete road projects,” Pimentel said in a separate interview.
Pimentel said he heard about the new Instapave from HL Trading Company Inc. owned by Engr. Lucio Horfilla Jr., a contractor engaged in distributing PSPC products.
The mayor said with the success of Instapave he will again use the product in other road projects in Tago.
“This Instapave really works wonder and save us a lot of money and I hope more areas in the country will also benefit from this new Pilipinas Shell product,” he said. (Romy Bwaga)
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