Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), the preferred cooking fuel in Filipino households as well as in restaurants, will rise this month by P4.00 per kilogram (kg) or an aggregate P44 for the standard 11-kilogram cylinder.
The LPG industry players said price adjustments took effect today, Feb. 1, and the increase will stay for the rest of the month.
As of this writing, the LPG firms that already sent notices on their price adjustments include Petron Corporation for its Gasul brand; Phoenix Petroleum for its Super LPG; as well as that of Solane LPG.
Additionally, Petron announced that its autoLPG price for the transport sector would go up by P2.23 per liter effective February 1, while Phoenix Petroleum’s autoLPG will rise slightly by P2.24 per liter.
Oil firms attributed the increase in this month’s LPG prices to the rising contract prices in the world market based mainly on Saudi Aramco contract prices, the benchmark for the Asian market.
Prior to this adjustment, the pick-up price of LPG products at retail outlets in Metro Manila was already hovering at P822.00 to P1,009.00 for the standard tank, according to a monitoring report of the Department of Energy.
The energy department emphasized that apart from the Saudi contract price, another factor that has been influencing LPG prices is the foreign exchange rate – and the last month generally manifested the Philippine peso’s value decline versus the US dollar.
Since last month, there have been assumptions of LPG supply tightness because of increasing demand in the Asian market, hence, that consequently resulted in the uptick of international contract prices.
“Following the timing of the monthly changes in CP (contract price), the domestic price of LPG also varies every first day of the month and remain constant throughout the whole month,” the DOE explained.
At the height of the pandemic, LPG turned out to be the most essential commodity that many Filipino households had depended on, especially during the strict lockdowns, hence, it has been that segment of the oil industry that had not been adversely affected financially on the lingering duration of the health crisis.