DESPITE DECLINING OIL PRICES IN THE world market, Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. and Total (Philippines) Corp. raised diesel and kerosene prices by P1.50 a liter at 6 a.m. Saturday.

Both oil firms said the price increases were necessary to enable them to partially recover the hike in the costs of diesel and kerosene the past months.

Petron, however, opted to maintain its pump prices at current levels.

?We are not moving today (July 26). Given that international oil prices have been on a declining trend over the past week, we will monitor over the next few days to see whether the trend will be sustained before making any pricing decisions,? Petron said in a statement.

The country?s independent oil firms?which include Seaoil Philippines Inc., Flying V, Eastern Petroleum Corp. and Unioil Petroleum Philippines Inc.?also decided to hold off any increase in pump prices, at least for this weekend.

?We?re looking at international prices. Since they are softening, there?s an opportunity for us not to increase this weekend,? Seaoil president Glenn Yu said in an earlier interview.

He explained that for the past seven days, prices of oil products in the world market had been falling.

According to data from the Department of Energy, the regional benchmark Dubai crude registered a July average of $133.91 a barrel from $127.82 a barrel in June.

This latest average was lower than the $137.02-a-barrel posted as of the end of last week.

The price of unleaded gasoline based on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) benchmark for refined petroleum products reached an average of $138.61 a barrel in the July 1-25 period from $140.30 a barrel last month.

This was also lower than the July 1-17 average of $142.91 a barrel.

MOPS-based diesel hit an average of $171.70 a barrel in the first 25 days of July from the June average of $169.36 a barrel?still lower than the $175.73-a-barrel average posted in the first 17 days of the month.