Long drives during this Holy Week may prove to be punishing for motorists as the price of gasoline products will be up by P1.40 per liter this week, while diesel prices will rise by P0.50 per liter.

Additionally, oil companies announced that the price of kerosene will slightly increase by P0.20 per liter in this round of adjustment.

As of this writing, oil companies that already sent notices on their price hikes effective Tuesday, April 4, include Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation, Seaoil, Cleanfuel, Unioil and Chevron; while their competitor-firms are all anticipated to follow.

As had been the usual routine, prices at the pumps will be adjusted based on the swing of prices as indexed on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS), which is the pricing reference employed in the deregulated oil market of the country.

Prior to this round of cost movements, a monitoring report of the Department of Energy (DOE) has shown that prices since the start of the year still logged net increase of P4.65 per liter for gasoline; while diesel had a net decrease of P4.15 per liter; and kerosene posted overall reduction of P5.55 per liter.

This renewed price uptick in the domestic industry could be attributed to the rally in prices in the world market last week that had been traced to geopolitical events as well as the reported decline in crude inventory of the United States, a mammoth oil consumer-market.

In the days ahead, global experts indicated that prices will likely track new round of upswings following the announcement of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and ally-producers (OPEC+) on cutting production by as much as 1.16 million barrels per day.

That latest development had driven international oil prices to surge anew, with international benchmark Brent crude inching close to $84 per barrel as of Monday (April 3) versus a leaner level of $79 to $80 per barrel level last Friday (March 31).

As emphasized by market watchers, the voluntary production cuts of the OPEC+ will be enforced from May until the end of this year, as anchored on the announcement made by Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producer.

Given this sudden shift in supply dynamics in the world oil markets, industry experts have raised new round of alarm that prices may climb back to the $100 per barrel territory; hence, the era of lower prices for consumers may end for yet another time.