Western Visayas braces for high oil prices

WESTERN Visayas is bracing for the increasing oil prices in the region and the entire country augmented by the low refinery output in Batangas, an official said.

Director Zenaida Monsada of the Department of Energy (DOE) Oil Industry Management Bureau said the national law hopes to ensure a competitive market under a regime of fair prices, adequate and continuous supply of environmentally clean and high quality petroleum products.

Monsada and DOE Visayas Director Antonio Labios were in Iloilo Thursday to conduct a multi-sectoral advocacy campaign in collaboration with the Philippine Information Agency on the downstream oil industry regarding provisions of Republic Act 8479, or the Downstream Oil Industry Deregulation Act of 1998.

Monsada admitted that the DOE is affected by the looming people’s action against oil price hike and talks of a pro-oil cartel administration, but explained the volatile movement of international oil prices is brought about by geo-political concerns and speculations in the world market.

She said the refinery output in Batangas is pushing the high oil imports that are not enough to cover the demand for oil in the country. Metro Manila and Luzon areas are the most oil demanding followed by Mindanao and the Visayas.

The Batangas facilities refine imported crude oil into liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), premium and regular gas, aviation turbo, kerosene, diesel and fuel oil.

Diesel fuel is the most in demand gas by the transport sector and the demand is almost two times than that of gasoline. The demand is some 75 percent in Metro Manila and Luzon.

However, the refined supply is only 69,000 barrels per day (bpd) of diesel as compared to the demand of 122,000 bpd.

Other refined supply are 55,000 on premium gas; 35,000 on LPG; 34,000 on aviation turbo high octane gas; 12,000 on regular gas; and 3,000 on kerosene.

The national demand covers 25,000 bpd on premium gas; 12,000 on LPG; 36,000 fuel oil; 17,000 aviation turbo; 10,000 regular gas; and 2,000 on kerosene.

Monsada said the top oil producers in the world are Saudi Arabia, Russia, United States, China, Iran, Canada, Mexico, United Arab Emirate, Brazil, Nigeria, Kuwait, Iraq, Venezuela, Norway and Algeria.

The net oil exporters are Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, UAE, Norway, Kuwait, Nigeria, Angola, Algeria, Iraq, Venezuela, Libya, Kazakhastan, Canada and Qatar.

US and China are not considered oil exporters as their local demand is much higher than supply.

The Philippine government owes the oil companies some P17 billion under the Oil Price Stabilization Fund and the rate of return of investments oil companies in the Philippines is much lower in the deregulated period than the regulated period, Monsada added.