Oil players to maintain prices; dismiss calls for any rollback

Local oil players committed yesterday to maintain pump prices of their products in the next two months while dismissing any possibility of a rollback.

At the annual general meeting of the Philippine Institute of Petroleum Inc. (PIP), executives of the "Big 3" oil companies and the new oil players lambasted Consumer and Oil Price Watch (COPW) chairman Raul Concepcion’s pronouncement that a rollback is in the offing following the continuing downtrend in world crude prices.

Concepcion said Tuesday there is a possibility of a price rollback by as much as 20 centavos in May this year after crude prices remained on a downtrend for the past two months.

However, new Petroleum Players Association of the Philippines president Fernando Martinez said the prediction of Concepcion is far from reality.

"The prediction of Raul seems to be a little off because last month he predicted an increase. We did not move since it is premature. In the same manner now he has predicted a rollback," Martinez said.

Martinez argued that they do not have direct control of the international market. "We do not know what will be the reaction of the world market come the one million cutback. At a time that there should be a potential increase, here he (Concepcion) is predicting a rollback," he said.

According to Martinez, prices, though, will remain stable. "Stable means that there should be no price adjustment, either up or down," he said.

But, Martinez expressed concern over the slight depreciation of the peso for the past few days. "I think things will still be on a very stable environment. But we should watch very closely the movement of the peso," he said.

Petron Corp. chairman Jose Syjuico Jr. shared the same sentiment, saying that they could not predict the movement of prices in the world crude market in the following days. "The OPEC (Oil Petroleum Exporting Countries) just announced the cutback on production. We still have to assess the implication of such a move. It is still premature to make a statement," Syjuico said.

Nick Florio, country chairman of Caltex Philippines Inc., for his part, said while he agreed on Concepcion’s pronouncement that oil prices will likely to go down in the next few days, he said that it is too early to say whether a rollback is possible.

"We would wait till that time. Directionally, we are in a direction where prices would come down. We would agree that the direction is right. We don’t necessary agree with his (Concepcion) numbers," he said.

Florio said they have been making a minimal adjustment in their prices since the start of the year. "It (price adjustment) could be. But it won’t be what Mr. Concepcion says necessarily," he said.

Florio said they have been adopting a different pricing scheme. "Our philosophy is different, we intend to be making more frequent price moves in smaller amount so it won’t be this monthly adjustment. We have done this two or three times already this year and we hope to continue. So you may see prices coming down but in smaller amount. We might think of a rollback in some other way. It might not be even a rollback," he said.

Shell chairman Oscar Reyes, meanwhile, questioned the basis of Concepcion‘s computation. "Clearly, there is a need to reconcile our numbers. The actual fact is that crude cost converted into pesos between January to February increased by 47 centavos per liter not 19 centvos. Now for February to March, we still have to see what the final figure is for March," Reyes said.

But he assured that definely there would be no immediate price increase or decrease in the near future.

"No change for us, up or down," he said.