Slight price rollback ends weeks of hikes

MANILA, Philippines — The consecutive weeks of increases totaling to P17.30 per liter for diesel and P11.85 per liter for gasoline end today, as oil firms implement a slight rollback in pump prices.

In separate advisories yesterday, oil companies said prices would be reduced by P0.20 per liter for both gasoline and diesel, and a slightly higher P0.50 per liter for kerosene.

The downward price adjustments will take effect at 6 a.m. today for most companies, except for Caltex and Cleanfuel, which implemented the price movements at 12:01 a.m.

This marks the end of 11 consecutive weeks of price hikes for diesel and kerosene, which have amounted to P17.30 and P15.95 per liter, respectively, and 10 straight weeks for gasoline amounting to P11.85 per liter.

Last week, oil firms raised prices by P2 per liter for both gasoline and kerosene, and a heftier P2.50 per liter for diesel.

These price adjustments resulted in a year-to-date net increase of P17.50 per liter for gasoline, P13.60 per liter diesel and P9.94 per liter for kerosene, data from the Department of Energy (DOE) showed.

DOE monitoring from Sept. 19 to 21 showed that prevailing retail prices of diesel and diesel plus products in Metro Manila ranged from P62.95 to P74.04 per liter, and from P67.60 to P87.10 per liter, respectively.

Gasoline prices, meanwhile, ranged from P62.35 to P90.15 per liter, depending on the RON or research octane number of the fuel.

As for kerosene, prices monitored during the period ranged from P80.75 to P93.09 per liter.

DOE-Oil Industry Management Bureau director Rino Abad earlier said oil prices could remain high throughout the year due to supply tightness, as energy supply risk continues to rise, notably in the aftermath of Saudi Arabia and Russia’s decision to rollover their voluntary production and export curbs to year-end.

Abad, however, said while pump prices may continue to increase for the remainder of the year, its intensity would not be as strong as what has been seen in recent weeks.