Diesel prices will inch up higher by P5.85 per liter on Tuesday, March 8, as oil companies will also be recovering coco methyl ester (CME) cost, or the biofuel blend component in diesel products being retailed at the domestic pumps.

Industry players explained that price upticks for diesel commodity is bigger than the earlier calculation of P5.50 per liter, not just because of the CME cost pass-on, but also due to the price premium integration for this week’s adjustment.

For the other products, the increase for gasoline would be at P3.60 per liter while kerosene prices will climb by P4.10 per liter, as culled from the pricing advisories of the oil companies.

As of press time, industry players that already sent notices on their price hikes had been Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation, Cleanfuel, Seaoil, Chevron and PetroGazz; while the rest of the industry players are expected to follow the pricing adjustment trends initiated by their competitor-firms.

For next week, heftier price increases are likewise anticipated as oil prices wildly gyrated to all-time high US$130 per barrel for Brent crude as of Monday trading in the international market – that has been higher by US$12 per barrel from last week’s peak of US$118 per barrel.

Correspondingly, for WTI crude, which is the benchmark for North American market, this swelled to US$126 per barrel; and Dubai crude which is the reference pricing for Asian market, likewise soared to US$106 per barrel.

The massive escalation in domestic pump prices this week is still due to the surge in global oil prices last week, with international benchmark Brent crude soaring to as high as US$118 per barrel and that has been mainly triggered by the lingering Russia-Ukraine war.

This is already the 10th round of price hikes since the start of the year – and the adjustments this week are of all-time high proportions because of skyrocketing prices in the world market.

Based on the monitoring of the Department of Energy (DOE), pump price increases since the start of the year already accrued to P13.25 per liter for gasoline products; P17.50 per liter for diesel; and P14.40 per liter for kerosene products.

The other factor that could aggravate price rally at the pumps would be the falling value of the Philippine peso versus the greenback – with the foreign exchange rate already touching at P52 to the US dollar as of Monday (March 7).

In the world market, the ‘super spike’ being projected by market experts as well as investment banks would be US$200 per barrel oil – and that could happen soon if the Western world leaders will heed Ukraine’s plea for embargo or sanction on Russian oil and gas.

Apart from the protracted armed conflict, there are also lingering worries of tight supply that oil markets would need to address in the months or years ahead – primarily on the investment front.