Oil firms hike gasoline, cut kerosene prices

AFP PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — Oil firms are raising gasoline prices and tempering kerosene prices on Wednesday (June 12), amid similar price movements globally. Diesel prices will be unchanged.

Seaoil Philippines Inc. said Tuesday it would hike the prices of all its gasoline products by P0.50 per liter but would trim the price of kerosene by P0.15 per liter effective 12:01 a.m. on June 12. “This is to reflect price movements in the international petroleum market,” Seaoil said in an advisory sent via text message.

Other oil firms implemented price changes a day earlier.

In separate text messages, Petron Corp. and Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. said they were implementing the following price adjustments: a P0.50 per liter increase for gasoline and a P0.15 a liter decrease for kerosene. The adjustments took effect at 6 a.m. on June 11.

Petron and Shell account for more than half of the country’s retail fuel market.

Total Philippines, meanwhile, only adjusted pump prices for gasoline (upwards by P0.50 per liter) at 6 a.m. on June 11.

Other oil companies have yet to make similar announcements but they usually track each other’s price movements since the country imports most of its fuel requirements.

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oil Monitor last week stated that news of global economic concerns, ample supply, and rising demand on upcoming summer driving season in the U.S. were reflected in mixed results for oil products. The barely growing China factory output also weighed on the price trend, according to the report posted on the DOE web site.

“The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) delegates, in their May 31, 2013 ministerial meeting in Vienna, Austria, indicated that they agreed to keep the output target at 30-million b/d. Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali al-Naimi stressed that the oil market was balanced, with inventories at moderate levels, and U.S. shale oil production was not a threat to the group,” the Oil Monitor report said.