Motorists can rest easy this week, as the price of gasoline products will be on rollback by P1.50 per liter, while diesel prices will also go down by P1.30 per liter, based on the announcement by oil companies. Industry players also sent notices for a price cut of P1.40 per liter for kerosene, an essential commodity support to key industries, primarily the aviation sector. As of this writing, the oil firms that already advised on their price cuts had been Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation, Seaoil, Cleanfuel and Chevron Philippines effective May 2 (Tuesday); while their competitor-firms are all anticipated to follow. The domestic oil companies will be trimming their prices this week based on the costs swing of the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS), the pricing index for fuel commodities being traded in the regional market. Conversely, for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) which is the preferred cooking fuel of most Filipino households, this will rise by P0.82 to P0.85 per kilogram (kg) or aggregate P9.02 to P9.35 for the standard 11-kilogram cylinder. The LPG firms that already announced price hikes include Petron Corporation, Phoenix Petroleum at P0.85 per kg; while Solane has a leaner increase of P0.82 per kg - all effective on May 1 and that pricing adjustment will stay for the rest of the month. Additionally, Petron and Phoenix Petroleum advised that the prices of their autoLPG products for vehicles will go higher by P0.48 per liter this month. For the oil products at the pumps, experts noted that the softening of prices in the world market last week had been generally anchored on reinforced sentiment of global economic slowdown – which was strongly manifested by reported decline in capital goods spending of the United States, a mammoth oil consumer. Fears of economic recession have been a recurring theme igniting downward pressure on global oil prices since last year; and until this time, there are no concrete projections yet that markets can steadily lean on to when it comes to the world’s overall economic health. The downswing in international oil prices has been permeating in recent weeks despite earlier announcement by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and ally-producers (OPEC+) that they will be cutting down production starting this May.