With successive cost spikes already running on its 11th week, the consumers’ drive to the gasoline stations will mimic another episode akin to squeezing blood from stone as petroleum prices will incur hefty increases next week, based on the calculation of the oil companies.

According to the industry players, the price of gasoline will go up by P1.70 to P2.10 per liter; while diesel prices will surge by P2.20 to P2.60 per liter.

Kerosene, which is the other commodity in the triumvirate of weekly price adjustments, will also rise significantly by P2.00 to P2.40 per liter, as estimated by the oil firms.

The new wave of price hikes will be implemented on Tuesday (September 19); and it will be anchored on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS), an index of traded fuel commodities in the Asian region which has been adopted by players in the deregulated Philippine downstream oil industry as reference on their weekly price adjustments.

Prior to this round of price hikes, a monitoring report of the Department of Energy (DOE) has shown that cost movements since the start of the year already logged aggregate upticks of P15.50 per liter for gasoline; P11.10 per liter for diesel; and P7.94 per liter for kerosene products.

According to global experts, the unabated rally in prices were not just due to lingering supply pressure on the production cuts and export curbs of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its ally-producers (collectively known as OPEC+) – primarily the impositions of Saudi Arabia and Russia; but also renewed forecasts of reinforced demand for China.

Market watchers noted that both the manufacturing as well as retail sales in China have been logging favorable data, and that sparked off sentiments in oil markets of probable supply tightening in the weeks and months ahead.

As of Friday (September 15) trading, international benchmark Brent crude drastically climbed above $93 per barrel, and that has been re-igniting fears of $100 per barrel oil swamping oil markets in the remainder of the year. That was a remarkable jump from last week’s $89 per barrel level.

Further, the OPEC has reiterated projections of oil demand growth for 2024 – and that is seen reaching the scale of 2.25 million barrels per day, to be propelled by faster economic recovery in many major economies of the world.

The foreseen acceleration in demand will provide counterweight to the lingering dilemmas of some countries on rising interest rates and inflationary impacts on their basic costs of goods and services.

In the Philippines, the din of protests in the streets still circles around the niggling bid of the public transport sector for fare hikes as they face continued financial distress from weekly price upswings at the pumps.