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Sunday, April 13, 2008
Oil prices up, fare rates hike looms
MANILA -- Oil companies raised the prices of petroleum products for the seventh time this year, this time by P0.50 per liter.
The successive pump price increase prompted transport groups to push with their petition to ask government to increase minimum fare rates -- P1.50 for jeepney and P2 for bus.
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Giant players Petron Corp. and Pilipinas Shell and three smaller oil companies said the increase resulted from the continuing rise of oil prices in the international market.
A minute past midnight Saturday, Shell, Unioil, Flying V and Eastern Petroleum increased by 50 centavos per liter the pump prices of gasoline, kerosene and diesel.
Petron raised their pump prices at 6 a.m. Saturday.
As oil prices rise, so do the anxiety levels of motorists and traders whose goods become pricier when the cost of moving them increases.
As of last Friday, unleaded gasoline already cost P9 more per liter than it did in late April last year, according to the energy department's Oil Price Monitor. Households now pay between P72 and P102 more for every 11-kilogram tank of cooking gas than they did during the summer last year.
Dubai crude prices hit an average of US$98.03 per barrel, or $1.27 higher than the March average.
"Dubai reached an all-time high of US$102.18 on April 10," Petron manager Raffy Ledesma said in a statement.
Fer Martinez, president of Eastern Petroleum, said as much as they wanted to keep the prices of gasoline, diesel and kerosene steady, they also need to recover their losses.
Monitoring by the Department of Energy (DOE) indicated that the Singapore MOPS price per barrel of unleaded gasoline for April hit $113.17 per barrel, compared to $96.64 per barrel for March and $90.02 per barrel last February.
As of April 5, retail prices of unleaded gasoline hit as high as P48 per liter from P44 per liter.
Kerosene reached between P42 and P43 per liter, diesel between P36 and P40 per liter and LPG between P551 and P596 per 11-kilogram cylinder.
Last April 1, the DOE imposed a P1 tariff cut on fuel imports to cushion the impact of the rising prices abroad.
In the United States, retail gas and diesel prices jumped to yet another record last Friday, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Gas prices at the pump rose 0.8 cent to $3.365 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. The increase marks the latest in a series of records in recent weeks, and leaves American drivers paying 56 cents more a gallon now than they did a year ago.
Analysts expect gasoline prices may move even higher when more drivers take to the roads as summer approaches and refineries complete their conversion to more expensive summer-grade fuel. It is unclear how far prices will go, however, because a bigger fuel bill could convince some drivers to cut back, the AP report said.
"I still do not believe there's enough strength in demand that it's going to justify that move to $4 a gallon," said Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service in New Jersey.
The International Energy Agency has lowered its global oil demand forecast for the year by 310,000 barrels a day to 87.2 million barrels a day, citing lower economic output expectations in the United States and elsewhere.
"The suspicion is it's not just the US that's going to see a slowdown," Kloza said. "I think it's significant, but I also think the would-be sellers ... are probably not yet convinced."
Crude oil's recent run above $100 a barrel has been largely attributed to the steadily depreciating US currency. A weakening dollar attracts investors to commodities as a hedge against inflation, but when the dollar rises, the effect tends to reverse as oil also becomes more expensive to investors overseas.
Meanwhile, transport groups are considering another transport strike on the first week of May to protest the latest round of pump prices hike and ask government for a P1.50 increase in minimum fare for jeepney and P2 for bus.
Transport groups are firming up plans for a transport strike by the first week of May, however no other details related to the plan were made available.
If the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) approve the fare rate petition, minimum fare for jeepneys in the first five kilometers would be P9 and P10 for buses.
Jeepney operators are asking a P.75 increase for every succeeding kilometer after the first five kilometers while bus operators are asking P.35 per kilometer.
The Pinag-Isang Samahan ng mga Tsuper at Opereytor Nationwide (Piston) led a Metro Manila-wide strike last month to protest the latest round of pump prices hike.
Piston blamed the oil deregulation law for the successive oil price increases. (Sunnex/AP)For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star General Santos. (April 13, 2008 issue)
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