Oil prices on rollback next week (Sabong News)

As oil prices in the world market were on downtrend most days last week, Filipino consumers can enjoy short-term relief in their pockets with expected price rollbacks to be reflected at petroleum pumps on Tuesday, May 3. Based on the calculation by oil companies, the price of diesel will be cut by P1.10 to P1.25 per liter, kerosene by P1.00 to P1.15 per liter, and a leaner gasoline price reduction of P0.65 to P0.75 per liter. The downward price adjustments had been referenced on the cost swings of the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS), which is the conventional pricing yardstick being enforced by the domestic industry players. Oil firms, however, indicated that the estimated price rollbacks could be leaner than the MOPS-calculated amounts because of the very volatile Philippine peso versus the US dollar, which is the other factor influencing pump price movements. This is just the fourth round of rollback implemented since the start of the year as increases still generally dominated the swings of prices at the pumps. As could be gleaned from the monitoring of the Department of Energy (DOE), the year-to-date price adjustments still incurred net increases of P18.45 per liter for gasoline; P31.45 per liter for diesel; and P25.05 per liter for kerosene. In a related development, industry players have likewise hinted of price cuts in cooking fuel liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) to be announced this weekend. Local LPG companies have been adjusting the prices of this commodity based on fluctuation of international contract prices anchored with that of Saudi Aramco, the pricing reference for Asian markets. Meanwhile, for petroleum products at the pumps, it could be gleaned that prices were generally tamed in early trading days last week, but international benchmark Brent crude climbed back to the level of $109-$110 per barrel as of Friday, April 29, trading. For Dubai crude, which serves as a pricing indicator for Asian oil markets, this was relatively steady at $102 to $103 per barrel last week. Given the fresh round of rally in world oil prices then, it is expected that a reverse trend of price hikes will reign again at domestic pumps next week. According to global experts, prices in the world market tracked new wave of uptrends due to the declining oil production in Russia and the incessant supply disruptions being experienced by Libya, one of the world’s key oil producers.