At A Glance
- Global oil prices have climbed back above $90 per barrel, and if the trend continues, there is high expectation that domestic pump prices will have fresh round of increases next week.
It will be a continuing happy drive to the petroleum stations for motorists filling up their vehicles with diesel as the price of this commodity will have a rollback of P0.95 per liter this week, according to the oil companies.
Nevertheless, for those using gasoline, the sentiments will be different because they will need to shell out additional budget, as the cost of this product will rise by P0.55 per liter.
For kerosene, which is a product generally used by households as well as a base fuel for the aviation sector, it will also have cost reduction of P0.95 per liter, based on the pricing advisory of the oil firms.
As of this writing, the industry players that already sent notices on their price adjustments effective Tuesday (October 17) had been Shell Pilipinas Corporation, Seaoil, Cleanfuel, PetroGazz and Chevron; while their competitor-firms are all anticipated to follow.
This is already the fourth week that there had been downtrend in the costs of some petroleum commodities – and this week’s mixed adjustments followed the big-time rollback implemented last October 10.
The Filipino consumers suffered 11 weeks of price spikes from July to 3rd week of September, then there was marginal price rollback on September 26; and that was followed by mixed adjustments last October 3.
Global experts indicated that there had been colliding factors affecting prices in the world market – that while the Israel-Palestine war exploded last week; there were also other developments which softened market sentiments, including the inventory buildup of the United States.
Nevertheless, international benchmark Brent crude climbed anew to the $90 to $91 per barrel scale as of Friday (October 13) trading because of the US pronouncements on reinforced sanctions against Russia and Iran, which are major oil producers of the world.
There is no certainty yet that the escalated world oil prices will stay for the rest of the week, but if there are no factors that will soften prices in the trading days ahead, then consumers will need to brace for fresh round of price upticks next week.
Market watchers are similarly monitoring if the Israel-Palestine conflict will linger; and if some major producer-countries may eventually be dragged into the ongoing war, because that could trigger further surges in prices globally.