Unioil rolls back diesel price by P2

MANILA, Philippines – Unioil Petroleum Philippines Inc. reduced yesterday its diesel and kerosene prices by P2 per liter, a step ahead of the P1 cut implemented a day earlier by other oil firms.   

Unioil retained the prices of its gasoline products, saying the prices have already gone down considerably.

Last Sept. 19, Unioil reduced the prices of all its petroleum products by P3 per liter, a day after the market implemented a smaller P1 reduction.

Other players implemented a P1 cut on a two-step basis – or P0.50 each time.

Unioil general manager Chito Medina-Cue Jr. said the latest cut reflected the “the real prices as determined by market competition, supply, and international prices.”

He added the firm reduced its prices as part of the celebration of its 42nd anniversary.

“At the end of the day, Unioil is not only a company with a mission to sell petroleum products but also a company with conscience. We are all consumers here,” Cue said.

Unioil’s 40 retail stations are all in Luzon.

It has embarked on a P90-million expansion plan involving the setting up of six more stations in Quezon City, Parañaque, Pasay and Makati.

National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Director General Ralph Recto said last Tuesday that prices of petroleum products should be reduced by P5 per liter in view of the steady fall of global oil prices.

The Consumer and Oil Price Watch said the reduction should be steeper, at P8 per liter.

Senators not satisfied

Senators said yesterday they were not satisfied with the P1 rollback on the prices of fuel and stressed a better monitoring of the oil companies must be pursued.

“I think the oil companies will want to bring down prices by P2 to P4 more rather than be taxed 90 percent of their excess profits,” Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile stressed.

Enrile said that Malacañang and the Department of Energy could not exert much pressure on the oil companies because “they are not tax experts.”

“Only Enrile the tax expert thought of (excess profit tax). They did not take up master of laws on taxation,” Enrile said.

Enrile earlier said he would file a bill to impose tax on the excess profits of oil companies should they refuse to bring down prices despite the decreasing prices of crude in the world market.

He said since tax measures should emanate from the House of Representatives, he would ask somebody from the lower chamber to file a bill as counterpart to his own and conduct a hearing on it.

Sen. Francis Escudero said he would like the oil deregulation law revised or repealed to prevent abuses by the oil companies.

Escudero, Senate Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan and Sen. Loren Legarda also said the oil companies had been too slow in reducing prices but fast in increasing them.

Pangilinan said the P1 rollback was “an insult” to Filipinos.

“It feels more like a pathetic handout than a genuine gesture, given that the global crude price has gone down by as much as six dollars,” Pangilinan said.

“They keep giving us excuses. Filipinos know simple mathematics,” he said. “Why are they doing it little by little? They are insulting,” Pangilinan said.

Global oil prices have fallen by 40 percent since July when they peaked at $150 per barrel.

But local oil companies have been hesitant about declaring rollbacks. Many suspected they were using the government’s re-imposition of the one-percent tariff last week as an excuse to maintain current prices.

“Based on studies by civic organizations, these companies owe us an immediate rollback of P7. But here, they are giving us a token one-peso rollback,” Pangilinan said.

“Maybe the problem is that they forget theirs is primarily a service industry and not big business,” he said.

The latest P1 cut was the 11th rollback since July.

“The common return on investment is 12 percent; 15 percent to 20 percent is just okay. But this is already 100 percent of their investment, the net profit,” Enrile said. – With Ted Torres