Filipino motorists will pay more for diesel next week by P5.80 to as much as P6.20 per liter, according to the calculation of the oil companies.
The price of kerosene, which is an essential base fuel for the aviation industry, will likewise climb by P3.50 to P3.90 per liter while gasoline prices will rise between P1.00 to P1.40 per liter.
The industry players noted that if premium charges and the depreciating value of the Philippine peso will be factored in, the increases due at the domestic pumps by Tuesday, Oct. 11 may even escalate further.
The oil companies have been adjusting their prices based on the swing of the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) which is the reference pricing that have been affecting the trading of fuel commodities in the regional market.
This week’s price upticks will essentially wipe out the financial gains that consumers had incurred in the last five weeks of cost rollbacks, stretching September to first week of October.
As culled from the monitoring report of the Department of Energy (DOE), oil price adjustments since the start of the year still logged net increases of P28.95 per barrel for diesel; P23.25 per liter for kerosene; and P14.45 per liter for gasoline products.
According to global oil experts, the single biggest event that triggered fresh round of price surges had been the Oct. 5 decision of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and ally producers (collectively known as the OPEC+) on output cutback of two million barrels per day.
Following that pronouncement, world oil prices immediately soared – with international benchmark Brent crude winding up end-week trading at $97 per barrel as of Oct. 7 -- apparently inching closer back to the $100 per barrel scale that the OPEC+ producers have been targeting.
It has been world’s biggest oil producer Saudi Arabia that will be leading the production cut, following the initiative of Russia that has been lifting oil-barrels at a reduced scale for several months already.
Despite the weeks and months that passed, the Philippine government has not fully sorted out a mechanism yet how the marginalized sectors can be sustainably helped when prices will be back into the never-ending track of price hikes.
There had been previous proposal to institutionalize a subsidy scheme for the marginalized segments of end-users, such as the public transport and agricultural sectors as well as push for fuel cost unbundling, but these remained as deliverables of the Marcos administration until now.