Shell, Chevron increase prices on Tuesday

MANILA, Philippines—Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. has raised prices of unleaded premium gasoline by 50 centavos a liter, diesel by 60 centavos per liter (cpl) and of kerosene by 40 cpl, effective today (Tuesday) to reflect the continued uptrend in the world oil market.

This was roughly the same as the estimates of the DoE which expected oil companies to raise prices of gasoline by 44 cpl and diesel by 60 cpl.

Also effective 6:00 a.m. Tuesday, Chevron (formerly Caltex) Philippines will increase its WPP (wholesale purchase price) of Gold, Gold E10, Silver and Silver E10 by 0.50 cpl, diesel by 0.60cpl and kerosene by 0.40 cpl.

Other oil companies have yet to make their respective announcements.

According to a DoE oil monitor report dated June 7, the higher price trends seen over the past weeks were due to several events including weak US dollar over other currencies; intensifying unrest in Yemen and continued political unrest in other oil-rich countries in the Middle Eastern and North African regions; the increasing diesel and fuel oil consumption of power plants in Argentina because of dropping temperatures, which led to cuts of natural gas supplies. The Argentinian law provides that the government must cut gas deliveries to power plants first and then factories to guarantee supplies for residential and business users, which use the energy source widely for cooking and heating.

As of last week, the Oil Producers Exporting Countries (Opec) failed to reach an output deal for a forecast on world oil supplies, which could begin to fall short later this year, draining inventories just when the demand is expected to hit a seasonal peak.

An Inquirer report stated that based on Opec’s monthly report published last Friday, world demand for its oil would average 30.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in the second half of the year much higher than the 28.97 million bpd that the 12 member group produced in May.

“The figures suggest the world will be undersupplied by 1.73 million bpd—enough to meet demand in an economy the size of France—if the organization of petroleum exporting countries does not increase supplies,” the report stated.

When global demand is higher than supply, world market prices naturally go up, thus largely affecting the Philippines, which imports most of its requirements, the DoE earlier said.