Motorists will be driving to their frustration at the pumps this week as the price of petroleum commodities will be on a new series of big-time price hikes as announced by the oil companies.

Based on the pricing advisories of the industry players, the price of gasoline products will rise by P1.10 per liter; while diesel prices will have heftier upward adjustment of P1.55 per liter.

In parallel, the price of kerosene, which is an essential base for aviation fuel and also a key commodity used by households and other industries, will escalate by P1.40 per liter.

As of this writing, the oil firms that already sent notices on their price hikes effective Tuesday (April 9) had been Shell Pilipinas Corporation, Seaoil Philippines and Cleanfuel; while their competitor-firms are all anticipated to follow suit.

Prior to this round of adjustment, a monitoring report of the Department of Energy (DOE) has shown that price swings since the start of the year already yielded net increases of P8.20 per liter for gasoline; and P4.50 per liter for diesel.

The aggressive climb in prices in the global market last week had been mainly attributed to array of geopolitical events as well as strands of economic growth in ‘super power countries’ that are seen to cause stress on available supply moving forward.

As of end-week trading on Friday (April 5), international benchmark Brent crude already breached the $91 per barrel territory, hence, that had driven up further the estimated price increases at the pumps this week.

The developments which perturbed market sentiments last week had been reports on the continued output cuts of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and ally-producers (OPEC+); as well as fears on probable retaliatory attacks that Iran might launch against Israel.

Further, there are also emerging market worries about added supply strain due to concerns on Mexico’s production decline, that in turn, may result on its lower export to markets.

On the demand front, the main global economic headway which exerted pressure on supply had been the improved manufacturing outcomes logged by China and the United States, two of the world’s biggest end-users of petroleum commodities.