DOE: Don't expect diesel, LPG rollback this week

While it expects major oil firms to follow the lead of their smaller competitors and bring down gasoline prices in the coming days, the government admitted Monday that no diesel price rollback may be forthcoming for this week. Energy Undersecretary Jose Layug Jr. said world prices of diesel remain high, because of high prices of the commodity in the world market. "Ang diesel, hindi namin nakikita na magro-rollback. Medyo mataas pa ang presyo ng pandaigdigang pamilihan (As far as diesel is concerned, we do not see a rollback this week. Prices of diesel are still high in the world market)," Layug said in an interview on dzBB radio. He also said the DOE does not expect any change in prices of liquefied petroleum gas at least until the first week of April. "Ang LPG kada buwan ang movement. Hindi pa napapanahon gumalaw sila. Usually first week of the month (LPG prices move usually in the first week of the month. It is not time for LPG players to adjust prices at this time. Usually they do it in the first week of the month)," he said. But he said the DOE expects the so-called Big Three in the oil industry - Shell, Chevron and Petron - to follow the rollback imposed by smaller players effective Monday.

Earlier, dzBB reported small players such as Eastern Petroleum, Unioil and Seaoil rolled back prices of gasoline at P1 per liter. Layug said the rollback was consistent with the 99-centavos-per-liter estimate of the Energy Regulatory Board. "Itong rollback sa gas e inaasahan namin ngayong linggo (We expect this rollback in gasoline to take place this week)," he said. "Napapansin namin ngayon sa mga oil players natin, naguunahan sa paganunsyo. Ang three small players natin nauna na sila. Inaasahan namin ang Big Three susunod ngayong araw (We notice our oil players are trying to get ahead of each other in announcing price rollbacks. The three small players have shown the way. We expect the Big Three to follow suit today)," he added. Rollback due to speculation Layug also said the rollback may have been due to speculation over the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan. He said that while demand had not gone down, many traders had expected a big drop in demand from Japan after the quake paralyzed many of its industries. "The way we see it, traders expected a big drop in demand for gas because of the effect of the quake on the world's third largest economy," Layug said. But he said they are hoping the downward trend of fuel prices will continue. — RSJ, GMA News