Oil price rollback seen next week

After a round of big-time price hikes, motorists may expect a sigh of relief in the coming week as pump prices of petroleum products are expected to roll back.

Citing data of oil trading in the past five days based on the Mean of Platts Singapore, an oil industry source told GMA News Online on Saturday that the price per liter of diesel may go down by P2.28.

Gasoline prices, meanwhile, may be slashed by P2.79 per liter.

Likewise, in its fuel price forecast, Unioil Petroleum Philippines said that the diesel prices may go down by P1.80 per liter while gasoline may roll back P2 per liter.

The local oil industry uses Mean of Platts Singapore, the daily average of all trading transactions between buyers and sellers of petroleum products as assessed and summarized by Standard and Poor’s Platts.

Fuel firms usually announce price changes every Monday and implement the adjustments on Tuesday.

In an interview on Dobol B TV on Saturday, Department of Energy-Oil Industry Management Bureau director Rino Abad confirmed that there is a rollback on fuel pump prices next week.

“Medyo malaki ang rollback [pero] hindi kasing laki nu'ng increase noong nakaraang linggo pero malaki itong rollback,” Abad said.

(The rollback will be a bit large but not as large as the increase last week.)

“Sa diesel, higit sa dalawang piso ang bawas-presyo. May rollback din sa gasolina at kerosene,” he added.

(For diesel, the price reduction will be over P2. There is also a rollback in gasoline and kerosene.)

Effective March 29, 2022, fuel firms hiked gasoline prices by P3.40 per liter, diesel by P8.65 per liter, and kerosene by P9.40 per liter.

The latest price hikes brought the year-to-date adjustments at a net increase of P18.30 per liter for gasoline, P27.85 per liter for diesel and P25.75 per liter for kerosene.

“Kung tuloy-tuloy ang peace talks sa pagitan ng Russia at Ukraine at wala nang sanctions from EU, wala na tayong inaasahang reversal nang tuloy-tuloy na pagganda ng presyo ng langis,” Abad said.

(If the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine will continue and there will be no more sanctions from the European Union, we are no longer expecting a reversal of price rollback and the stabilizing of fuel prices will continue.) —KG, GMA News