House Committee OKs institutionalization of minimum oil inventory requirement

The House Committee on Energy on Tuesday approved a measure that would institutionalize the country’s minimum inventory requirement, and push for the unbundling of domestic prices.

Marikina City Representative Stella Luz Quimbo pushed for the amendment of the Oil Deregulation Law, to provide for the unbundling of oil products in the law given the successive price increases.

“Unbundling the retail price of domestic petroleum products does not run counter to the principle of deregulation, and is, in fact, a tool to ensure its effectivity,” she said in a sponsorship speech.

The measure also seeks to impose a minimum inventory requirement of 30 available days’ supply on a per company, per depot, and per product basis which was also earlier proposed by the Department of Energy (DOE).

The available day’s supply refers to the actual available inventory divided by the average daily demand for the past three months, also on a per depot and product basis.

The measure comes as the country has so far recorded 11 straight weeks of increases in pump prices of petroleum products, with gasoline prices up by P7.10 per liter and diesel by P13.15 per liter on Tuesday alone.

The Department of Energy (DOE) maintained that the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine hit global prices, which in turn impacted domestic prices.

Latest DOE data shows that year-to-date adjustments stood at a total net increase of P13.25 per liter for gasoline, P17.50 per liter for diesel, and P11.40 per liter for kerosene as of March 8, 2022.

The same data revealed that prices in Metro Manila ranged from P59.85 per liter (Caloocan) to P84.55 per liter (Muntinlupa) for gasoline, and from P55.20 per liter (Pasig) to P73.39 per liter (Taguig) as of March 10, 2022.

“While we remain steadfast in our commitment to deregulation and competitive markets, we must also pass a measure which can be responsive to the needs of our people in times of shocks, calamities, or wars,” Quimbo said.

“As we are constrained by the effects of supply and demand in a deregulated regime, we should not be left without the ability to have quick recourse when such effects result in the suffering of many Filipinos,” she continued.

For its part, the government has allocated some P2.5 billion to provide fuel vouchers for some 377,000 qualified public utility vehicle drivers across the country amid the successive pump price hikes. — DVM, GMA News