Diesel price rollback seen next week

OIL consumers can expect a price rollback for diesel by as much as P0.55 per liter next week as it reflects the movement of prices in the world market.

An industry source told the Standard that based on the four-day trading and foreign exchange movement weekon-week, the pump price ofdiesel is estimated to go down by P0.45 to P0.55 per liter, while gasoline will have no movement or a P0.05 per liter increase.

The final computation will depend on Friday's oil price trading, the source added.

The move followed reports from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that there may be some risks to summer oil demanddespite the production cut announced by OPEC and Saudi of 1.16 million barrels per day to boost prices.

On April 11, local oil companies implemented a per liter increase of P2.60 for gasoline, P1.70 for diesel and P1.90 for kerosene.

These resulted in a year-to-date net decrease for diesel at P1.95 per liter and kerosene at P3.45 per liter.

Gasoline on the other hand, has a net increase of P8.65 per liter.

Meanwhile, Department of Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla met with theLiga ng Transportasyon at Operators sa Pilipinas on Friday to discuss their concerns such as domestic oil prices, utilization of liquified natural gas for road public transport, transition to e-vehicles, and other programs and projects that the Department of Energy may extend to the public transport sector.

The DOE said the dialogue was a venue for the continuous coordination between the agency and LTOP on addressing concerns and keeping them abreast of government initiatives in the sector.