Motorists filling up their vehicles with diesel can save more this week as the price of this commodity will be on a rollback of P0.65 per liter while gasoline products will have relatively marginal price reduction of P0.20 per liter.

Kerosene, which is the other fuel product in the trinity of weekly adjustments, will have significant price cut of P0.85 per liter this week, according to the oil companies.

As of this writing, the industry players that already sent notices on their price rollbacks include Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation, Seaoil, PetroGazz and Cleanfuel effective on Tuesday, Dec. 28, while the rest are anticipated to go along with the price trends set by their competitor-firms.

The price downtrend will track the cost swing of regional market prices as anchored on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS), which is the pricing benchmark adopted by Philippine oil companies.

Global oil prices have settled at mid-70s per barrel last week with the recent assessment of health experts that the threat of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 may no longer be as menacing as previously predicted although mobility in many Western countries are still tightly guarded because of rising infections.

Meanwhile, the other development being awaited by oil markets would be the scheduled meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its ally-producers (OPEC+) on Jan. 4, 2022 wherein they are expected to decide on whether the targeted production hike by February will be concretized or not.

The cutback in prices at domestic pumps came as a sort of good news to Filipino consumers – especially for those who will be travelling during the Christmas holidays.

And since this is a rollback, even the areas recently hammered by typhoon Odette can benefit of the price reductions to be implemented by oil companies because the 'price freeze’ under a state of calamity situation will just be enforceable if there are price spikes.

Nevertheless, for a number of the calamity-hit communities, oil commodities have been among those that they have been struggling to have access to and repair works as well as reopening of gasoline stations are still being stepped up until this time.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has already warned individuals and entities of corresponding penalties if they take advantage of the situation like engaging in illegal trade or hoarding of fuel products.