Unioil rolls back kerosene, LPG prices

Unioil Petroleum Philippines Inc. rolled back the price of its kerosene products by P7.60 per liter and its auto LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) by P1 per liter.

Total Philippines Inc. and Eastern Petroleum Corp. have also reduced the price of their auto LPG by P1 per liter.

The price cuts are expected to be this year’s last. 

Unioil general manager Chito Medina-Cue Jr. said the price rollback was in response to the continued decline in crude prices in the international market. He also said it’s part of Unioil’s commitment to sell its products at affordable prices.

“This is one of the biggest price rollbacks we had for this year and Unioil will continue this commitment to the public to have a fair and competitive pricing,” Medina-Cue said.

Based on the Department of Energy (DOE) monitoring as of Dec. 16, Dubai crude declined by about $8 per barrel from the November average.

Similarly, gasoline and diesel declined by about $9 per barrel and $11 per barrel, respectively, compared to their November averages.

The DOE, however, noted that crude oil prices had slight fluctuations in early trading days last week.

Analysts believe crude oil prices are unlikely to rise above $60 per barrel in the near future even if OPEC decides to cut production by 1.5 to 2 million barrels per day.

Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency (IEA) cut its estimates of world oil demand for 2008 and 2009, saying the contraction in demand from rich countries appeared worse than previously thought.

In its latest monthly oil market report, the IEA said it was seeing the first signs of demand weakness outside the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or OECD, particularly in Asia.

As a result, IEA cut its estimate of average world oil demand in 2008 to 85.84 million barrels per day, the first time that global demand has declined since 1983.

IEA, however, expects world oil demand to grow in 2009, predicting a rise of 440,000 barrels per day to 86.28 million barrels per day.