MANILA, Philippines—Despite numerous reports of difficulty to secure liquefied petroleum gas these past weeks, the Department of Energy is maintaining its position that there is no shortage of the product in the market.

Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes assured the public on Thursday of enough supply after inspecting depots of major LPG suppliers. But he acknowledged the problem of distribution.

He explained that due to the increase in LPG demand over the holidays, the queues of dealers' trucks waiting to be filled with LPG had grown longer, thus making it more difficult to ensure that the supply would get to the end-user on time.

"One truck takes an hour to turn around. We saw that queues at Liquigaz (Philippines Corp.) and Petron (Corp.) had reached 15 trucks and 13 trucks. The problem with some refillers is that they don't want to queue,'' he told reporters on Thursday. "That problem is actually part of the business. Businessmen can't just complain all the time about their problems.''

He said the perceived tightness in supply should ease in the coming days as a shipment of 15,000 metric tons of LPG was expected to arrive on Friday.

Consumers, however, should brace themselves for a possible increase in cooking gas prices next month as local LPG suppliers are expected to reflect the hike in the January contract price for the product in February.

According to DOE data, the international contract price of LPG rose to $380 this month from $336.50 in December 2008.

This, Reyes said, was equivalent to a P2-a-kilogram hike in local LPG prices.

"We expect this to be reflected in February prices. There will be no increase yet this month,'' he said.

An 11-kilogram cylinder of LPG now sells for between P400 and P480.

As for gasoline and diesel, Reyes said further reductions could still happen, but definitely not to the extent that Consumer and Oil Price Watch chair Raul Concepcion was saying.

"The P8-a-liter rollback that he's asking for is not realistic. We don't want to give a specific figure on how much more pump prices could go down, but we can say that it is not by P8 a liter,'' he said.

DOE data showed that the regional benchmark Dubai crude had slightly increased to an average of $47 a barrel as of January 7, from an average of $41 a barrel last month.

The price of unleaded gasoline based on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) benchmark for refined petroleum products also went up to a $48-a-barrel average in the first seven days of January, from the December average of $41 a barrel.

MOPS-based diesel also averaged higher at $65 a barrel in the January 1-7 period, from the $61-a-barrel average posted in December.

Oil firms cut gasoline prices 19 times in 2008 for a total of P28.50-P34.50 a liter and diesel prices 17 times for a total of P25.50-P28.50 a liter.