Four small oil players hike pump prices by 50¢/liter

Four of the country’s smaller oil players initiated yesterday another 50-centavo per liter price hike on their petroleum products.

Seaoil Petroleum Corp., Eastern Petroleum Corp., Flying V and Unioil Philippines Inc. said they will adjust their prices upward effective today.

"Due to the higher cost of oil products in the world market, Seaoil is forced to raise its prices by 50 centavos for all fuel products," Seaoil said in a statement. The three other small oil players will raise their pump prices by 50 centavos per liter to partly recover losses due to continued rise in global crude prices.

"The increase is needed to cushion our growing losses due to the unabated increase in world oil prices," Unioil said.

As of press time, the three major oil firms – Petron Corp. Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp., and Caltex Philippines Inc. have yet to announce a similar adjustment in their pump prices.

The weekly 50-centavo per liter oil price hike over the next four weeks has been expected as oil players said they have under-recoveries of P3 per liter for the month of February.

The latest oil price hike countered the public transport groups’ clamor for oil companies to implement a full, one-time price increase.

Industrialist and consumer advocate Raul T. Concepcion said there would be even larger oil price increases in the next two months as the price of the benchmark Dubai crude rose to record levels recently.

But Concepcion said "since there would be a series of unprecedented increases in local oil prices, the oil companies should have the decency to explain to the public why they are suffering from these high prices."

At the same time, Concepcion said he would urge the government to revert the import tariff on petroleum products back to three percent from the present five percent to cushion the impact of the rising crude prices on consumers.

"We have agreed before that we will impose the increase in tariff rate from three to five percent when oil prices are low. Now that oil prices are soaring, the government may consider reverting back the tariff imported oil to lessen the impact on oil consumers," said Concepcion, chairman of the Consumer Oil and Price Watch (COPW).

He, however, admitted that the proposal would run counter to the government’s objective of raising more revenues. "We will just recommend. It will still be the government that will decide on this,"he said.

The industrialist made the proposal after predicting possible "huge’ oil price increases for the next two months.

According to Concepcion, there is an urgent need for an emergency meeting with Energy Secretary Vincent S. Perez, Incoming Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla, the members of the DOE-created independent panel, the oil companies and the transport groups to come up with ways and means to cushion the impact of the increase in oil prices.

Concepcion said that the approved price increase in March (January vs February) by DOE is P2, in four weekly staggered increases of 50 centavos starting March 7th.