Consumers will catch bigger financial break in their drive to the gas stations next week, as price rollbacks have gone heftier at end-week trading on Friday (September 6), prompting estimated price cuts for gasoline at the scale of P1.45 to P1.85 per liter.

Diesel prices are also anticipated to decline by P1.15 to P1.55 per liter; while kerosene prices will be slashed by P1.20 to P1.60 per liter, according to the oil companies.

If reckoned solely on the full week trading results of the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) index, the calculated price reductions would be P1.852 per liter for gasoline; P1.522 per liter for diesel and P1.597 per liter for kerosene products.

This week’s cost downtrend at the pumps will be a moment of much needed relief from periods of brutal financial squeeze on consumers’ pockets and paychecks; which had been a recurring scenario for several instances this year – including last week’s round of price hikes.

As emphasized by the industry players, global oil trading in recent days had been generally affected by bearish sentiment precipitated by the targeted production boost by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its ally-producers (OPEC+), even if they have delayed that move by at least two months.

Market watchers indicated that such development brought prices on a downward trajectory because any supply boost at this point will have a direct collision course with softening macroeconomic fundamentals, primarily the weather-than-expected economic performance of China.

Even the conflict-ridden Middle East and the reported production shutdown in Libya did not bear much weight on last week’s trading outcomes.

On prospects of highly probable oversupply at oil markets next year, international benchmark Brent crude crashed to as low as $71 per barrel as of Friday, a colossal drop from last week’s $76 to $78 per barrel level.

For the Philippine market, in particular, another major favorable development has been the strengthening of the Philippine peso versus the US dollar, which closed this week at P55.905.

The foreign exchange rate is one of the major pricing determinants for oil products retailed at the pumps, because a stronger local currently would mean less petrodollars funneled into the country’s oil imports.