The country’s oil firms will likely cut pump prices by as much as P1.50 per liter effective Tuesday to reflect the movement of prices in the world oil market.
An industry source told the Standard that based on the first four days of trading using the Mean of Platts Singapore, the benchmark used by oil refiners and the foreign exchange movement, diesel prices may go down by P1.30 to P1.50 per liter, and gasoline by P1.20 to P1.40 per liter.
This will be the third consecutive week of price rollbacks for diesel and kerosene, and the second straight week gasoline prices would be cut.
The Department of Energy confirmed the price rollback, although the computation may still change depending on the movement of prices on Friday.
“For the four-day trading, there will be an expected rollback for the prices of gasoline, diesel, and kerosene by next week,” Rodela Romero, DOE director for the Oil Industry Management Bureau, said.
She said the price rollback was “primarily due to the concerns that risks in the global banking sector and the potential increase in the US interest rates could spark recession thereby cutting fuel demand.”
“Another one is the build-up in US crude inventories and the slide of dollar,” Romero said.
On March 21, the oil companies also cut pump prices of P1.20 per liter for gasoline, P1.85 per liter for diesel, and P2 per liter for kerosene.
These resulted in a year-to-date net decrease for diesel at P2.85 per liter and kerosene at P3.65 per liter.
Gasoline, on the other hand, has a net increase of P5.50 per liter.
