Oil firms hike gas prices anew

MANILA, Philippines - Oil companies raised gasoline prices anew yesterday morning but slashed the prices of diesel products.

In separate advisories Monday night, oil firms announced a P0.40 per liter increase in gasoline and a P0.55 per liter reduction in diesel, marking the third price increase this month and the first rollback in at least five weeks.

Oil firms said the latest adjustments reflect movements in the international petroleum market, and that they spared areas affected by Typhoon Yolanda from the price increase.

Petron Corp., the country’s biggest oil refiner, said “there will be no movement in Aklan, Bohol, Leyte and Samar.”

Yesterday’s oil price hike in gasoline came amid a price increase in electricity rates starting this month until February due to a staggered December power rate hike of Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).

The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) approved the staggered billing scheme to implement the P3.44 per kilowatt-hour increase in the generation charge of Meralco.

The ERC said Meralco may collect the P3.44 per kwh generation charge in three installments: P2 per kwh in December, P1 per kwh in February and P0.44 per kwh in March.

The total increase in power rates for December including the P2 per kwh hike in generation rates as well as taxes and other charges is P2.41 per kwh.

This would translate to an increase of P480 in the billing charges of residential users with an average monthly power consumption of 200 kwh a month.

The increase in power rates is due to the month-long maintenance shutdown of the Malampaya deep water gas-to-power project, which supplies natural gas to three power plants in Luzon.

The three plants sourcing power from Malampaya are the 1,200 MW Ilijan combined cycle natural gas plant owned by Kepco Philippines Corp. and the 1,000 MW Sta. Rita and 500 MW San Lorenzo natural gas facilities owned by First Gen Corp. of the Lopez group.

With the shutdown, the three power generation companies had to resort to more expensive diesel fuel to run their plants.