Unioil Philippines followed suit by also increasing its gasoline prices by 50 centavos, sparing the price of diesel.
Petron initiated the price increase late Saturday. It also raised the price of its liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) or cooking gas by 50 centavos per kilo.
Shell, Chevron and Unioil followed by implementing the same price adjustment, which took effect yesterday.
Total Philippines Corp., on the other hand, announced that it will raise its prices starting today.
"As part of our efforts to help the transport sector, the price of diesel will remain unchanged and the P1 diesel discounts at PUJ lanes in 151 Petron stations will continue," Petron public affairs manager Virginia Ruivivar said.
Chevron officials also said they continue to offer the P1 per liter discount on diesel fuel in 190 stations scattered nationwide.
The oil firms raised the price of their LPG products despite the government’s prior announcement that the international contract prices for LPG remained stable.
In the Department of Energy (DOE)’s price monitoring, the contract price of LPG in the international market remains unchanged from last month.
The DOE said LPG contract price in the international market for June carried over from May’s level of $470 per metric ton.
It was learned that the oil companies were not increasing the price of their diesel products in compliance with the reduction of the tariff on imported petroleum products from three percent to zero percent.
"We thought that this was already in compliance to the tariff reduction but they (DOE) said it was not enough," industry sources said.
The oil firms, however, said that they would continue to increase the prices of their gasoline and kerosene products to keep up with the soaring crude prices in the world market.
It was expected that this upward trend will go on for the next few weeks. The weekly price hikes will also persist until the oil firms have recouped their under-recoveries.
As of June 2, Dubai crude, benchmark of local oil refiners in pricing their products, averaged $65.22 per barrel as against $65 per barrel in May.
Diesel price in Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS), the price gauge of oil importers, averaged $87.07 per barrel versus $87.53 in May. Unleaded gasoline in MOPS was still high at $85.60 per barrel compared to May’s average of $86.80.
Under the approved guidelines for the tariff reduction on imported petroleum products, the two percent tariff rates shall be imposed on crude and petroleum products should the average price of both Dubai crude and Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) - based diesel in the last two weeks reach $66.00 per barrel and $88.00 per barrel, respectively.
The tariff adjustments will only be implemented upon certification issued by DOE to the Department of Finance and the Bureau of Customs that the trigger prices for both crude and diesel have been met.
The guidelines also tasked the oil companies to reflect the corresponding reduction in pump prices of diesel fuel sold to the public transport sector.
The DOE asked the oil companies to provide sufficient number of gasoline stations offering the appropriate tariff-reduced diesel prices to the public transport sector.
The corresponding reduction in pump prices is on top of the P1 diesel discount voluntarily provided by oil companies to jeepney drivers.