Filipino consumers will have to tighten their belts once again when it comes to their fuel budgets this week, as gasoline prices will increase by P0.90 per liter; while diesel prices will go up by P0.80 per liter.

Kerosene, which is the other fuel commodity in the weekly adjustments, will also inch up P0.75 per liter, as advised by the industry players.

As of this writing, oil companies that already sent notices on their pump price adjustments effective Tuesday, March 1, include Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation, Cleanfuel, Seaoil, and Chevron; while the rest of the industry players are anticipated to follow.

This is already the ninth round of price adjustments at the domestic pumps since the start of the year – and the price escalations were reckoned mainly on the rally of prices in the world market, including the Mean of Platts of Singapore (MOPS) which is the pricing referenced adopted by the Philippine oil market.

As monitored by the Department of Energy (DOE), oil prices since the start of the year already incurred net increases of P8.75 per liter for gasoline; P10.85 per liter for diesel; and P9.55 per liter for kerosene products.

As of Monday (February 28) trading, global oil prices were still on seesaw and it settled at US$98 per barrel at the start of the week – that was after its plunge to US$94 per barrel last week.

While international benchmark Brent crude surged above US$100 per barrel after the February 24 Russia invasion of Ukraine, prices immediately dropped when it became clear that sanctions will not be imposed on the oil and gas exports of Russia.

But since oil prices in the country are on their continued upticks, several policy issues are being revived for the deregulated downstream oil sector – including fuel cost unbundling as well as calls for the industry to revert to a regulated regime.

There are also calls for the government to broaden financial subsidies to be extended to the public transport sector -- so increases in fares could be avoided, because that is the segment that will have great inflationary impact on the costs of basic commodities and services.

And while there is automatic suspension of the excise taxes on petroleum products if Dubai crude will breach $80 per barrel within a period of one quarter, this is seen getting enforced by April this year yet.