Motorists will feel the pinch on their wallets anew as fuel commodity prices take a reverse course for uptrends next week, based on calculation by oil companies.
According to the industry players, diesel prices will have a relatively significant increase of P1.25 to P1.55 per liter, while gasoline prices are seen rising by P0.20 to P0.50 per liter by Tuesday, May 16.
The price of kerosene products, both essential for home and industrial use, will likewise climb by P1.10 to P1.40 per liter.
The projected oil price escalations is based on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS), a widely used benchmark for traded fuel commodities in the Asian market, and adopted as pricing reference of the Philippine deregulated downstream oil industry.
Prior to the forthcoming round of price adjustments, a monitoring report of the Department of Energy showed that cost swings since the start of the year logged aggregate increase of P3.85 per liter for gasoline; while diesel had a net decrease of P7.05 per liter; and kerosene had been down by a heftier P7.50 per liter.
Industry experts attributed the uptick in prices to the bullish demand outlook cast by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for China, as well as the hints given by the Biden administration that it will soon be replenishing its strategic petroleum reserve (SPR), the government-owned oil stockpile that the United States has been leaning on to stem any adverse impact of oil supply disruptions.
US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm made recent pronouncement to Congress that there is already a plan on repurchasing of crude for their SPR re-stocking.
Despite decline in China’s purchasing manager’s index (PMI) last month, the OPEC has bumped up its demand growth forecast for the Asian super power by additional 800,000 barrels per day. This has seen exerting pressure on supply as well as prices in the months ahead.
Industry watchers are projecting though that the boom-and-bust cycle in the oil industry will persist through the end of the year, with contrasting market prognosis hammering away in every week of trading.
For one, while the OPEC has reinforced demand projection for China, mammoth global oil producer Saudi Aramco indicated that its June cargo loading for the Asian market is actually on downtrend, signaling weakness in China’s demand.