No new oil price hike, say petroleum firms

MANILA, Philippines – Oil consumers may have a breather this weekend as petroleum companies indicated that pump prices are not likely to be increased.

For the past five weeks, oil firms have been raising pump prices of petroleum products by 50 centavos per liter to recover losses of about P2.56 per liter in March.

“We have already recouped our under-recoveries last month and for February,” an oil company official said.

The official said they have yet to compute the impact of the continued rise in global crude prices for the month of April.

“We haven’t computed the April under-recoveries. If the upward trend continues, we may have to increase prices especially if the peso depreciates. But we may have a breather this weekend since we need to compute the impact of the 50 centavos per liter tariff cut on our prices,” sources said.

The source said that if they have to adjust prices, this will happen not this weekend but in succeeding weekends. The price of Dubai crude hit more than $100 per barrel the other day.

“We still don’t know when this will end. But as of this time, it is still early to tell how much we will recover for April,” the source added.

Last April 1, the government ordered the implementation of an oil tariff cut of 50 centavos per liter. The DOE approved last March a P1 per liter reduction on tariff on imported petroleum products.

As of April 8, 2008, based on the DOE monitoring, the month-to-date average price of Dubai crude was almost the same as the previous month average.

Meanwhile, gasoline and diesel averages posted higher by about $2 per barrel and $4 per barrel, respectively, over the previous month levels. – Donnabelle Gatdula