More oil firms raise prices

Petron Corp., Eastern Petroleum Corp. and Flying V Petroleum have raised their gas and diesel prices by 50 centavos per liter, following the lead of Total Philippines, Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. and Caltex Philippines Inc., which raised their premium, unleaded and diesel prices last Saturday.

Petron and Eastern’s price hike took effect on Sunday night while Flying V’s increase took effect last night.

The new round of oil price hikes was prompted by a big jump in world oil prices over the past few days. Dubai crude closed at $51.77 per barrel yesterday, up from $49.82 last Saturday.

The average price of Dubai crude was only $45.40 per barrel last month.

Oil executives said that the weakening of the peso aggravates the level of pump prices. The peso was trading at 55.44 to the dollar as of press time yesterday.

The average value of the peso versus the US dollar from June 1 to 17 was 54.90 while the average value in May was 54.35. — Ted Torres