New round of oil price hike looms

Manila, Philippines - Motorists should brace for the second consecutive weekly price gain next week as international oil prices rise.

In a text message, Zenaida Monsada, Oil Industry Management director of the Department of Energy (DOE), said prices might increase by 60 centavos per liter for gasoline and 30 centavos per liter for diesel.

The preliminary figures were based on the four-day average benchmark prices, Monsada said.

“But no idea of how much the five-day average would be,” she said.

Final price adjustments will be announced next week.

Early this week, a big-time price hike of major and independent oil firms ended 13 consecutive weeks of rollbacks.

Oil players increased prices of regular gasoline by P1.80 per liter and premium gasoline by P1.55 per liter. The companies also marked up prices of both diesel and kerosene by P1.40 per liter.

The Eurozone has already started implementing its oil import embargo to pressure Iran to drop its nuclear program.

Since the start of the year, there have been 11 price increases and 15 price reductions, data from the DOE showed.

To date, gasoline and diesel posted a net decrease of P2.37 per liter and P3.66 per liter, respectively.

Under the Downstream Oil Industry Deregulation Act of 1998, oil firms can price their products based on market forces so as to encourage competition.

The deregulation law also prohibits the government from intervening or influencing the pricing schemes of oil companies.

However, for monitoring purposes, the DOE has requested the oil firms to report any price adjustments before implementation.