Friday, July 25, 2008 Firms won't raise oil prices this weekend
AFTER adjusting the prices of their petroleum products for the past weeks, independent oil players are not implementing a price increase this weekend.
Ramon Villavicencio, chairman of Flying V, said the prices in the international market have made them decide to adopt a wait-and-see attitude at the moment.
"We want to adopt a wait-and-see attitude first on oil prices so we won't have a price increase this week. The softening of the prices also pegs our under-recoveries at P4 to P5 instead of P6 to P7," Villavicencio said.
But he stressed that after August 3 they will make assessment to determine if there is a need to still push through with their under-recoveries.
Aside from Flying V, Seaoil Philippines announced that they are not raising their prices this weekend.
Other oil firms, including Pilipinas Shell, Petron Corporation and Chevron, are also expected to follow suit.
Latest monitoring conducted by the Department of Energy (DOE) showed that the prices of unleaded gasoline as of July 21 now ranged between P59.10 to P61.57; kerosene at P59.41 to P63.30; diesel at P55.98 to P57.97; and LPG at P645 to P702.30 per 11-kg cylinder.
Earlier, Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes doubted if there would be another round of increases in the prices of fuel this weekend.
He however said a rollback on oil prices is unlikely despite the US$17-plunge in world crude prices recently.
"We saw a five-day drop of US$17 per barrel in the prices of Dubai crude. That's very good news but a five-day drop does not establish a trend," he said.
The energy chief explained that local oil companies compute their losses or "under-recoveries" on a monthly basis and that July's dollar drop on Dubai crude resulting price adjustments would only be reflected next month. (MSN/AH/Sunnex)
