No more oil price hikes this month, says Concepcion

Industrialist and consumer advocate Raul T. Concepcion said he expects that there would be no more oil price adjustments this month.

To back up his assumption, Concepcion, the chairman of the Consumer and Oil Price Watch (COPW), noted that there was even a slight decrease in global oil prices.

"The oil companies did increase the prices of petroleum last week. But it’s a very volatile market that prices now have gone down. The world market price has gone down back to the $59 a barrel level owing to the onset of the summer season, he said.

He said the stability in domestic oil prices is also expected to be driven by continuing efforts to use alternative fuels.

"There is a determined effort in mostly shifting to alternative fuel. So if you look at the futures for delivery this month and in April — it’s lower now. In other words, because they bought high they are selling now to get prices to level. I see no reason for an increase within the month," he said.

He said since there is volatility in the market which may affect price trends in the next few weeks, the COPW will monitor the price movements of oil companies.

"The COPW will monitor the price changes every weekend. For the rest of the month, we’re going to watch it on a weekly basis," he said.

Concepcion also reminded the oil companies on the rules of transparency under Republic Act 8479 or the Oil Deregulation Law of 1998.

"I also would want to invoke the provision in the Oil Deregulation Law that forms the DOE (Department of Energy) and DOJ (Department of Justice) Task Force to determine three days before oil prices are adjusted whether such is justified or not. I’ve been asking for this so many times but we still don’t get a categorical statement. At the end of the day; consumers ought to know if the adjustments are just or not," he said.

As this developed, Petron Corp. and Total Philippines have implemented a rollback of P2 per liter in selected retail gas stations nationwide.

Total said all fuels in its Total Makati station located along Kamagong St and Metropolitan Ave.  will provide the P2 per liter discount starting March 10.

Petron, on the other hand, will provide the same discount at its Buendia and Makati Ave. gas station.

The oil companies, including Petron and Total, have raised their pump prices by 50 centavos per liter last March 3.