The country’s oil firms rolled back pump prices by as much as P0.85 per liter effective 6 am Tuesday to reflect the movement of prices in the world oil market.
The oil firms cut the price of diesel by P0.85 per liter, gasoline by P0.80 per liter, and kerosene by P0.70 per liter.
“Phoenix Petroleum Philippines will decrease the prices of diesel by P0.85 per liter and gasoline by P0.80 per liter effective 6am of 03 November 2020,” Phoenix Petroleum said in its advisory.
Aside from Phoenix, Seaoil Philippines, and Cleanfuel, also announced the latest oil price movement. Other oil companies are expected to follow suit.
Unioil Philippines said during the weekend consumers could expect diesel and gasoline prices to go down by P0.80 per liter.
“Expect fuel prices to go down next week (November 3 to 9),” it said.
“Diesel should go down by P0.80 per liter. Gasoline should go down by P0.80 per liter,” Unioil Philippines said in its weekly advisory.
World oil prices decline amid continuing increase in coronavirus infections especially in the US and renewed lockdowns from various countries which could dampen demand.
On October 27, the oil companies rolled back the price of diesel by P0.25 per liter and kerosene by P0.15 per liter to reflect the movement of prices in the world oil market but did not move gasoline prices.
These resulted to the total year-to-date adjustments to stand at a net decrease of P4.67 per liter for gasoline, P10.26 per liter for diesel, and P13.59 per liter for kerosene, according to the Department of Energy’s monitoring report.
Meanwhile, Petron Corp. president Ramon Ang has questioned the government’s move to put up an oil stock pile.
“They (government) have no facilities and money,” Ang said adding that an oil stockpile will require investments of about $10 billion.
He also said adding that fuel quality is affected if stored for more than 60 days.
“You can only stockpile if you have a refinery to reprocess the product,” Ang said
He earlier said Petron, the country’s lone refiner, will shut down its 180,000-barrel Bataan refinery “very soon” amid a “difficult” environment brought about by the coronavirus pandemic and an uneven playing field from oil importers.
The government is looking at establishing an interim oil stockpiling mechanism while waiting for the implementation of a national Strategic Petroleum Reserve program which has been pushed back to next year due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
DOE has directed Philippine National Oil Co, the government's oil and gas arm to assist it in drafting a department circular that will address the establishment of the interim oil stockpiling mechanism, which is intended as a preliminary initiative relative to the wider more comprehensive and capital intensive national SPR Program.
