LPG prices go down; more rollbacks expected
By Abigail L. Ho
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 20:14:00 09/05/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Following their announcement of a reduction in gasoline, diesel and kerosene prices, oil refiners Petron Corp. and Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. have also decided to cut liquefied petroleum gas prices by P1 a kilogram.
As with their earlier announced fuel price cuts, both companies said they were to implement the LPG price reduction at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
The LPG price reduction was in response to the significant drop in the international contract price of the product to $828 per metric ton from $881 last month.
This price reduction will bring the retail price of an 11-kilogram LPG cylinder to between P589 and P649.
In a related development, Unioil Petroleum Philippines Inc. general manager Luisito Medina-Cue Jr. said his company planned to slash its fuel prices by P1-P2 a liter next week.
Should international prices continue to go down, he said motorists could expect yet another rollback in the next few days.
According to data from the Department of Energy, the regional benchmark Dubai crude went down to an average of $105.10 a barrel as of September 5, from $112.86 a barrel in August.
The price of unleaded gasoline based on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) benchmark for refined petroleum products dropped to an average of $111.22 a barrel in the September 1-5 period, against last month’s average of $115.49 a barrel.
MOPS-based diesel also slid to an average price of $127.23 a barrel in the first five days of the month, from the $135.26-a-barrel average posted last month.
Unioil and other independent oil companies Flying V, Eastern Petroleum Corp. and Seaoil Philippines Inc. initiated a gasoline, diesel and kerosene price reduction of P1 a liter last Wednesday.
Oil majors Petron, Shell and Chevron Philippines Inc. were to follow suit at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
Medina-Cue said that since it implemented the price cut three days ago, Unioil has seen its sales double.
”We are currently experiencing extraordinarily high sales in the majority of our retail stations after we had a rollback last Wednesday. Sales doubled in the last 36 hours when we instituted the price reduction,” he said.
This was the sixth price reduction for gasoline for a total of P6.50 a liter and the fourth for diesel and kerosene for a total of P4.50 a liter.
With this price cut, pump prices of premium unleaded gasoline now range from P53.50 to P55.26 a liter, diesel from P51.20 to P53.09 a liter, and kerosene from P55.36 to P58.80 a liter.
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