House probe set on overpriced LPG in VisMin

MANILA, Philippines - The House energy committee will look into numerous complaints about the overpricing of cooking gas in the Visayas and Mindanao.

Two of the complainants are members of the House, namely Reps. Eduardo Gullas of Cebu and Arnel Ty of the party-list group Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Marketers Association. Ty sits in the energy committee.

A third congressman, Alfredo Benitez of Negros Occidental, is complaining about gas prices in his province and other parts of the Visayas, which he said are higher than those in Metro Manila.

“Cooking gas prices in the Visayas and Mindanao are exceptionally harsh and burdensome to consumers,” Gullas said.

“For instance, in the case of the 11-kilogram Petron Gasul, it is being sold for P828 in Cebu City and P727 in Quezon City, or a price difference of P101 or nearly 14 percent,” he said.

Gullas blamed the large difference on “the lack of free and fair competition in the LPG market in the Visayas and Mindanao.”

He said Petron Corp. now dominates the market in these two islands after it acquired the cooking gas business of Chevron (formerly Caltex).

He said there are only two other cooking gas suppliers in the south – Shell and Pryce Gases Inc. A fourth player, Total Philippines, gets its bulk supply from Shell.