Growth of PH oil demand slowed in ’17

The growth of demand for oil in the Philippines slowed to 7 percent in 2017 from 8.5 percent the previous year.

This developed as the Philippine economy registered an expansion of 6.7 percent in 2017 from 6.6 percent in 2016.

According to the Department of Energy, domestic demand for petroleum products reached 166.26 million barrels last year from 155.41 million barrels in 2016.

“This can be translated to an average daily requirement of 455.5 million barrels compared with last year’s [2016] level of 424.6 million barrels,” the DOE said in its latest semestral report.

Demand for diesel, which continued to account for about two-fifths of total, rose by 6 percent.

All other products, on the other hand, showed faster growth with fuel oil—which was 7 percent of total—rising by 13 percent.

Demand for kerosene/avturbo and liquefied petroleum gas jumped by 10 percent as did gasoline by 8 percent.

Respectively, these three products account for 10 percent, 11 percent and 24 percent of total consumption.

In 2017, the Philippines imported a total of $9.89 billion worth of oil products, surging 31 percent from $7.54 billion in the previous year.

“This was attributed to the combined effects of higher import cost and higher volume of product imports vis-à-vis last year [2016],” the DOE said.

The country managed to export $972.5 million worth of petroleum products in 2017, from $654.4 million earnings in 2016.

“Overall, the country’s full-year 2017 net oil import bill amounting to $8.92 billion was up by 29.5 percent from full year 2016’s $6.89 billion.