Oil firms roll back prices

MANILA, Philippines — Local oil companies announced significant price cuts on their petroleum products this weekend.

Independent oil firm Flying V Philippines announced Friday a P1.30 per liter price cut on unleaded gasoline, P1 per liter on regular gasoline, and P1.50 per liter on diesel and kerosene.

The big-time rollbacks started 12:01 a.m. Saturday, Flying V said.

Another independent firm, Eastern Petroleum Philippines, matched Flying V’s rollback. Our price adjustment took effect at 6 a.m. Saturday,” said Eastern’s head executive, Fernando Martinez.

Other oil firms have yet to announce an adjustment as of press time, although some oil executives said they are “monitoring” the situation.

Last Tuesday, oil companies slashed as much as P1 per liter on prices of diesel and gasoline to reflect the big price drop in international crude observed the previous week.

The latest rollback came amid repeated calls from solons, and most recently, Vice President Jejomar Binay, for petroleum companies to pull down fuel prices by significant increments.

The Department of Energy (DoE) had threatened to charged oil companies unless they roll back their prices by at least P2 by Monday.

Martinez, who last Wednesday said there was “no chance” of a second round of price cuts this week, said that the announcements last Friday were not a case of oil firms bowing to government pressure.

“Talagang meron (There’s really a rollback). Whether or not they (government officials) said anything, we were really going to cut prices,” he said.

According to him, the average difference in international crude price between Monday and Friday “gave room” for such a rollback. In total, Martinez said Eastern will shed P2.25 and P2.30 this week on retail prices of diesel and gasoline, respectively.

As of last Friday, pump prices in Metro Manila stood at the following average levels: gasoline (unleaded), P54 per liter; diesel, P43.50 per liter, and kerosene, P54 per liter.

But Friday night was not all about good news. Oil giant Petron Corp. said it was adding P1 per kilo (value added tax-exclusive) on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) prices and another P0.63 per liter (VAT-inclusive) on autoLPG effective Saturday.

Petron carries the LPG product “Gasul.” Its competition, the price of “Shellane” of fellow major player Pilipinas Shell, was also hiked by P1 per kilo (P11 for every 11-kilo cylinder) past midnight last Friday.

Both Gasul and Shellane saw P1 per kilo price increases last August 5. Retail prices for both LPG products now stand between P720 and P740 per cylinder.

Source Manila Bulletin