There will be extended financial relief for consumers at the pumps next week, as oil prices are anticipated to have moderate rollback, based on the computation of the oil companies.

According to the industry players, the price of gasoline products will be trimmed by P0.60 to P1.00 per liter; while diesel prices will have a reduction of P0.45 to P0.85 per liter.

The price of kerosene, which is an essential base for aviation fuel and a key commodity for households as well as other industries, is also projected to go down by P0.30 to P0.70 per liter.

If reckoned on the swing of prices as indexed on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS), the calculated price rollbacks would be P0.906 per liter for gasoline; P0.799 per liter for diesel; and P0.590 per liter for kerosene products.

Nevertheless, the final adjustments at the gasoline stations by Tuesday (November 21) may still differ because of other factors such as foreign exchange rate, market premium, biofuel costs as well as the strong sway of competitive forces in the deregulated downstream oil industry.

Prior to next week’s price cuts, a monitoring report of the Department of Energy (DOE) has shown that prices since the start of the year still incurred net increases of P13.05 per liter for gasoline; P6.35 per liter for diesel; and P1.69 per liter for kerosene products.

After roughly three months of surge in prices from July to September, consumers’ budgets had been finally eased in the last week of September until this time because of the weekly downtrend of prices at the domestic pumps.

Nevertheless, the pricing compass in global oil markets is still traversing uncertain terrains in the remaining weeks of the year, especially with the scheduled meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and ally-countries (OPEC+) by November 26 in which they are expected to discuss prospects on production quota.

International benchmark Brent crude was still at considerably low level of $78 per barrel last week, although there are forecasts that prices may be tracking upward recovery in the days and weeks ahead.

Apart from pitch on to markets of the traders and industry players’ sentiments, there are no major developments seen that could possibly ignite extreme volatility in prices moving forward, except if there would be new war sanctions or geopolitical events that could disturb market fundamentals.