As many consumers are still reeling from the impact of super typhoon Rolly, the oil companies offer some bit of good news as the price of diesel will be on rollback by P0.85 per liter; while gasoline prices will be slashed by P0.80 per liter this week.

For kerosene, which is a commodity that will be extremely helpful for households in areas still without restored electricity service, there will be a price reduction of P0.70 per liter.

As of this writing, the oil firms that already advised on their price cuts had been Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation, Seaoil, Cleanfuel and PetroGazz effective on Tuesday (November 3).

With the usual track of competitive forces; the other industry players are expected to match the trimmed prices that their company rivals will be reflecting at the pumps – and their typical reference on pricing adjustments is the Mean of Platts Singapore.

Relative to this development, the Department of Energy (DOE) also announced the enforcement of price freeze on kerosene as well as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in Cavite and Batangas, which already declared State of Calamity following super typhoon Rolly’s whip on Sunday (November 1).

The price freeze will stay for 15 days, and it will take effect from the day that the top official of the affected local government unit (LGU) made the state of calamity declaration.

For Cavite in particular, the price freeze for LPG and kerosene products will be from November 1-15, according to the energy department. On the ‘no cost movement directive’ for LPG, that will provide much needed financial to typhoon-affected households especially with recent announcement of P3.20 per kilogram hike in the price of that cooking fuel.

Another province that had its ‘state of calamity’ declaration was Batangas – but that was still on account of earlier typhoon “Quinta” – and that entails no price change for LPG and kerosene products in the area from October 28 to November 12. The DOE explained that for the severely clobbered provinces in the Bicol region – primarily Catanduanes, Albay, Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte and Sorsogon, they will need to wait for “state of calamity’ declarations by their LGU leaders before the price freeze is imposed.