It’s the turn of motorists using gasoline products to suffer a tighter squeeze on their pockets next week as the price of this commodity will rise by P0.80 to P1.10 per liter, based on the calculation of the oil companies.
For diesel, there will be a rollback of P0.45 to P0.65 per liter; while kerosene prices will likely be reduced by P0.20 to P0.40 per liter.
The industry players will announce their price adjustments on Tuesday (November 8), leaning on the outcome of trading in the regional market as anchored on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS), the weekly pricing adjustment reference of the domestic deregulated downstream oil industry.
Prices in the world market were still in seesaw, and there had been no major factor that really impacted price swings last week.
International benchmark Brent crude was practically steady at $95 per barrel territory most trading days last week; but the hawkish tone of the US Federal Reserve on targeted fresh round of interest rate hike partly prompted its sudden surge to $98 per barrel as of Friday (November 4) trading.
Market watchers noted that sustained geopolitical tension in Iran, Libya and Russia may continually exert upward pressure on oil prices in the days and weeks ahead.
Providing a counterbalance to that factor is the highly anticipated economic recession in the US; as well as expectations that China may soon relax its self-imposed stringent Covid restrictions.
There had also been pronouncement from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) of a threatening ‘energy crisis’ -- as their production rate has been declining at the pace of 4.0 to 5.0-percent.
In the Philippine market, the oil industry still goes along with the sway of global market forces, and there are no institutionalized policies yet how it will manage any new series of drastic price hikes in the future.
At the very least, the national government sounded off plans to carry on with proposed fuel subsidy to the marginalized economic segments – primarily those in the agriculture and public transport sectors. ###