Oil firms roll back prices for fifth week

MANILA, Philippines - Oil companies are implementing today another round of price reductions, marking the fifth consecutive week of rollbacks.

The price cuts follow almost two months of oil price hikes since early January.

Petron Corp., the country’s leading petroleum firm, said effective at 12:01 a.m. Monday, pump prices of Xtra, XCS and Blaze gasoline were reduced by 25 centavos per liter, 55 centavos per liter for Turbo Diesel and DieselMax, and 70 centavos per liter for kerosene.

Petron said the rate adjustment reflects the movement of prices in the international oil market.

Seaoil Philippines and Flying V also earlier announced similar price reductions, and other oil firms are expected to follow with their own price cuts.

Motorists have welcomed the recent price reductions following the high pump prices during the previous month.

Oil companies implemented four consecutive price hikes before reducing pump prices.

Energy officials said that it was difficult to say how long the downward trend of prices would continue.

A party-list group had asked the Department of Energy and the Department of Justice to look into possible pricing collaboration among the country’s oil companies.

Vigor Mendoza, chairman of the party-list group 1-UTAK, urged officials of Task Force Oil Prices of the two departments to investigate the possible pricing collaboration of oil firms that seem to adjust prices by slightly less when world prices decline than the increases when world prices go up.

In a letter to Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla, Mendoza, who is a member of the Independent Oil Price Review Committee, said a “percentage of change in the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) and the foreign exchange should have exactly the same percentage of change in the corresponding pump prices.”

He urged the energy department to put safety nets for tricycle drivers to help them cope up with the high pump prices.