Motorists filling up their vehicles with diesel products will have another week of agonizing trip to the petroleum pumps as the price of this commodity will rise by hefty P3.60 to P3.90 per liter.
For households and key industries like aviation, the cost burden will also come heavy because the cost of kerosene products next week is anticipated to increase by P2.60 to P2.90 per liter, based on the calculation of the oil companies.
Gasoline products, on the other, will just have marginal increase of P0.10 to P0.30 per liter, according to the industry players.
The oil firms will be adjusting their prices on Tuesday (August 8) and it will be anchored on the swing of trading prices in the regional market as indexed on the Mean of Platts Singapore.
Prior to the forthcoming 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 increases of P11.00 per liter for gasoline; P3.10 per liter for diesel; while there was a marginal net reduction of P0.10 per liter for kerosene.
The see-saw of prices in the past seven months exhibited that the prices of diesel were mostly on downtrend, but the past two weeks had shown sudden climb in prices at the domestic pumps due to rally of prices in the world market.
As noted by global experts, the new wave of upticks in global oil prices had been precipitated by ‘supply concerns’ given more favorable signs of economic rebound for the United States; as well as the colossal inventory buildup being carried out by China.
Being the two biggest consumers of oil in the world, it was emphasized that the demand hike for China and the US would be straining available supply in the market, hence, that sparked off price escalations in recent trading days.
China’s oil stockpile was reported hitting record-high, mainly on procurements from Russian crude as well as oil purchases from Iran.
As of Friday (August 4) trading, international benchmark Brent crude was still at elevated $86 per barrel level; and there are no concrete signs that this will be easing in the days ahead.
Adding to the price upswing trigger in the Asian regional market had been the maintenance shutdown of some refineries in South Korea this month; as well as recent reports of mega-refineries to be built by Saudi Aramco in Pakistan.