Thursday, October 09, 2008 Palace threat prompts oil firms to announce rollback of prices
OIL firms yesterday announced a P1 rollback of pump prices that took effect past midnight today following calls to immediately reflect the drop in the price of crude oil in the world market.
Representatives from Petron Corp., Pilipinas Shell, Chevron Philippines, and Seaoil announced the P1 rollback of gasoline, diesel and kerosene prices starting at 12:01 a.m. today.
Raffy Ledesma, public affairs officer of Petron, said they are also rolling back the price of their E10 premium by P0.75 per liter.
Seaoil also matched Petron’s rollback for their E10 by implementing a P0.75 per liter rollback.
Independent oil player Unioil Petroleum Philippines meantime said they are adopting a “wait and see” position on whether to impose another price rollback since their prices are lower by P2 per liter than other oil companies.
“Because we are lower by P2 in the prices of gasoline and diesel we are patiently waiting for other oil companies to follow and roll back in order to match our pump prices,” explained Unioil general manager Chito Medina-Cue.
In Malacañang, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita and Press Secretary Jesus Dureza, in separate interviews, made the call for a rollback amid Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile’s threat to push for a tax on the oil firms’ excess profits if they would not further bring down prices.
Both Ermita and Dureza said the government could not dictate on the oil companies because there is an existing deregulation law, but they hoped that the firms would be “sensitive to the public outcry.”
Benefit
“Well, the government’s calls are consistent. If there is beneficial reduction in oil prices in the world market, this should immediately be passed on to consumers,” Dureza said.
He added that whenever world crude prices increase, the local companies are quick to jack up their pump prices. He said they, especially the big oil firms, should also be quick to reduce their prices like the small oil firms.
Ermita is confident the oil companies would eventually do the right thing.
He said that there are, however, some measures that are available to the government in case the oil firms continue to impose high prices despite the adjustment in the world market.
Ermita could not say what these measures are, but he hoped that the government won’t need to resort to them.
Latest monitoring conducted by the Department of Energy (DOE) indicated that as of yesterday, Dubai crude plunged to as low as US$82 per barrel from the US$95 per barrel average last September.
Price basis for gasoline also dropped to US$96 per barrel this month from the US$107 per barrel recorded last month. Diesel, it went down to US$104 per barrel from US$121 per barrel for the month of September. (Sunnex)
