Fuel prices up, wipe out weeks of rollbacks

Oil firms imposed huge fuel price hikes this week, virtually wiping out 11 straight weeks of rollbacks, as international fuel prices bounced back.

Petron, Shell and Seaoil increased product prices by P1.75 per liter for gasoline, P1.95 per liter for diesel and P1.85 per liter for kerosene from 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

Minor oil firms such as Phoenix Petroleum, PTT Philippines and Total have not issued formal advisories at press time but are expected to implement similar price cuts.

Eastern Petroleum Corp. raised gasoline and diesel prices at tamer increments of P1.70 per liter and P1.90 per liter, respectively, effective 6 a.m. Tuesday. The minor oil firm attributed the price hike to the cut in supply from oil-exporting countries in view of the low demand.

Since January 2015, oil firms have imposed a net increase of 66 centavos per liter for gasoline and a net decrease of P2.64 per liter for diesel.

LPG prices have dropped by P12.75 per kilogram since the beginning of the year.

According to the Department of Energy Oil Monitor, oil trades toward the end of August to early September were marked by recovering equity stock markets, outages due to reported leaks in two major Nigerian pipelines, and worries over China, the world’s second-largest economy and fuel consumer.—Riza T. Olchondra