Pump prices will take new round of pinch on consumers’ pockets this week as the price of gasoline products had been increased by P0.60 per liter, based on the announcements of the oil companies.

Diesel, which is the other major fuel commodity used by motorists, will also go up by P0.20 per liter; and kerosene prices will climb by P0.55 per liter.

As of this writing, the industry players that already sent notices on their price hikes effective Tuesday (September 22) had been Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation, Seaoil, PetroGazz and Cleanfuel; while their competitors are expected to follow their price adjustment leads.

Prices in the world market had been on upswing last week on reports of demand recovery, although experts and market watchers are still anticipating slow-moving rebound in the sector.

Philippine oil companies are expecting demand recovery of up to 70 to 80-percent until yearend, but return to normal volumes are not seen coming until 2021; or it may taken even longer -- up to 2022 -- for aviation fuel.

Early this month, the US Energy Information Administration (US-EIA) had trimmed its outlook for global oil demand growth by 500,000 barrels per day on projections of lower consumption by China.

A monitoring report by the Department of Energy (DOE) has stipulated that China’s demand for oil will just be growing by 1.0 million barrels per day next year versus an earlier forecast of 1.5 million barrels per day.

There have been reports of increased production from the league of producers affiliated with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), but industry experts are assessing yet what impact would this have given that projections of rapid demand recovery seemed stalling due to threats of second wave of Covid-19 infections in various parts of the world.

For an oil market depending heavily on imports, like in the case of the Philippines, a weekly seesaw of price hikes and rollbacks will continue to jolt consumers – and price increases will be more of unwanted developments since many Filipinos are still pulling through from the impact of the lingering pandemic.

Prior to this week’s round of price adjustments, the precedent had been hefty rollbacks, hence, the Filipino consumers had a brief financial respite before they are floored again by fresh round of cost upticks.