The long-awaited rollback in pump prices will finally provide financial relief to Filipino motorists this week, as gasoline prices will be reduced by P0.75 per liter; and diesel products will be lower by P0.60 per liter.

For kerosene product, which is used by households and key industries, this will likewise be adjusted downwards by P0.60 per liter, as announced by the oil industry players.

As of this writing, the oil companies that already sent notices on their price rollbacks had been Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation, Seaoil, Cleanfuel, PetroGazz and Chevron effective Tuesday (July 27); while their competitor-firms will follow the implemented price trends this week.

Weaker oil demand in the global market had been pointed to as the main trigger to price softening in last week’s trading – and that’s because of the resurgence of swelling cases of Covid-19 infections because of the Delta variant.

Even biggest oil consumer United States, despite its high vaccination rate, is not being spared by the affliction of the new strain of the mutating virus, hence, that resulted in overall global demand downturn.

The Asian market, in particular, is also going through worse malady out of the lingering pandemic – especially in the Southeast Asian region, which is already shackled by the surging Delta variant-induced infections.

The drop in demand was technically a reverse of the very bullish scenario in oil markets in recent weeks; wherein economic recoveries have been flourishing in various parts of the world and that had been lifting prospects for higher need for oil commodities.

In fact, global experts have been worried that the deadlock in the discussion of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and ally-producers (OPEC+) on relaxing production quotas had been wobbling markets of probable supply tightness in the coming months.

For most market watchers, it remains a ‘wait-and-see scenario’ how the resurgence of coronavirus infections will be exerting price pressure on oil markets in the coming days and weeks – although as of Friday last week, fuel commodities were on uptrend again.

For heavy import-dependent market like the Philippines, volatility in oil prices as well as the Philippine peso-US dollar exchange rate will continue to influence domestic pump prices.