Motorists filling up their vehicles with diesel products will feel the brunt of pump cost adjustments to a greater degree this week, as the price of this commodity will rise by P0.95 per liter, according to the price adjustment notices sent by the oil companies.

The price of gasoline, on the other, will increase by a relatively moderate P0.50 per liter; while kerosene prices will climb by P0.60 per liter.

As of press time, the industry players that already advised on their price hikes effective Tuesday (September 7) had been: Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation, Seaoil, Cleanfuel, PTT Philippines, Chevron and PetroGazz; while their rival-firms are all anticipated to follow this week’s pricing trends.

The uptick in prices this week had been mainly attributed to ‘supply disruption’ in the United States, because of hurricane Ida’s battering that caused damages in production platforms as well as flooding in oil refineries.

As the US, which is the world’s biggest oil consumer, was being hammered by that recent extreme weather condition, prices surged to the level of US$72 per barrel last week for international benchmark Brent crude; while WTI crude has been trading above US$69 per barrel.

Experts noted that hurricane Ida had been the major factor that exerted pressure on oil trading prices last week – and it somehow posed a counterweight to the plunge in prices in recent weeks because of demand downtrend sparked off by the unabated escalation of Covid’s Delta variant cases in various parts of the world.

The sweeping rise of coronavirus cases, especially last month, already caused precipitous slide in world oil prices – and it already dulled sentiments on what was earlier expected as bullish recovery of the oil markets this year.

In the coming months, there are forecasts that demand in the US and China might continue to influence international oil prices – as the economic recoveries of these two biggest economies are seen sustained until the end of the year.

In the Asian region, oil industry experts continue to monitor demand swing on markets continuously being ravaged by the Delta variant – and that primarily includes Malaysia and the Philippines.

The Philippine oil market in particular is heavily dependent on imports, hence, geopolitical events as well as extreme swing in weather conditions, would always affect how petroleum products are priced domestically.