Pump prices on rollback this week
The seesaw of prices at the pumps will come lighter on the pockets of consumers this week as the price of diesel products will be on ₱0.95 per liter rollback; while gasoline prices will be trimmed by ₱0.70 per liter, based on the pricing advisories of the oil companies.
Additionally, the price of kerosene products will decline by relatively heftier ₱1.10 per liter this week, according to the industry players.
The oil firms that already sent notices on their price reductions had been Shell Pilipinas Corporation, Seaoil and Cleanfuel, while their competitors in the sector are anticipated to implement parallel price cutbacks on Tuesday (February 27).
The weekly cost movements in the Philippine oil market are still primarily anchored on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS), although escalating market premium due to rerouting of commercial shipping vessels had been adding up to pricing pressure since the Red Sea skirmish started in November.
On account of that, actual price adjustments had been leaner during rollback periods; while the increases are bigger when prices would be on uptick.
As noted by industry experts, global prices were tamed last week on new concerns relating to demand slowdown as well as prospects of interest rate hikes being contemplated by the US Federal Reserve – and these developments outweighed the lingering pricing provocation ignited by the Middle East tension.
International benchmark Brent crude prices have been gyrating between $82 to $84 per barrel last week, then due to confluence of events affecting market sentiments, it still ended up at lower $82 per barrel by Friday, Feb. 23, trading.
On Monday, Feb. 26, trading, prices descended even lower to $81 per barrel, although there are no certainties yet that this will be sustained for the rest of this week — to prospectively merit another round of price rollback.
While factoring in global developments as well as specific market plays in the Asian region, it is widely perceived that ‘pricing oil commodities’ in the Philippines still treads on complicated terrain – that it remains very difficult for consumers to understand what comes in for every liter of fuel they are purchasing at the pumps.
In view of that then, new calls for the institutionalization of the ‘price unbundling policy’ had been put forward, instead of just the Department of Energy (DOE) taking the defensive for the weekly price adjustments being enforced by the oil firms.