Diesel prices go down after 'usual' Holy Week hike

In the Philippines in the last six years, the prices of petroleum products have gone up without fail during the Holy Week. GMA News TV anchor Jessica Soho made the observation on Monday on her show "State of the Nation" (SONA), citing data gathered by GMA News Research. Soho asked whether the raising of pump prices during Holy Week — when travel within the country peaks— was due to “natural forces, economic forces or plain and simple pananamantala (abuse)." According to GMA News reporter Mark Salazar, the Department of Energy (DOE) said oil firms have cited several reasons for the recent oil price hikes: the fuel demands of China, the Philippine government’s transactions in Singapore, and the unrest in Libya. Salazar said the government may have to look into the books of oil players to determine if there was abuse in pricing of petroleum products.
3 oil firms roll back diesel, kerosene prices Two oil firms — Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp., and Seaoil Philippines — rolled back pump prices of their diesel and kerosene products by 40 centavos per liter but hiked their gasoline prices by 25 centavos, effective 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday. Eastern Petroleum, on the other hand, reduced the price of its diesel products by P0.25 per liter, while raising the prices of its gasoline products even higher by P0.35 per liter, starting 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday. Eastern Petroleum chairman and president Fernando Martinez said the latest price reduction was carried out to reflect the price of international oil prices in the last two weeks. “Eastern did not move its prices last week as a business decision but respects the right of other companies to do otherwise in the spirit of deregulated industry," Martinez said. The three oil companies rolled back their prices after Energy Secretary Jose Rene Almendras said on Monday that some petroleum players increased their prices more than what the government's calculations warranted. Almendras warned that those found to have overpriced their products will get penalized and even face imprisonment. “This week, our view is oil prices should roll back depending on how much you increased last week. So if you increased last week, your rollback should be higher. If you did not increase, then it should be less than those that did the increase," Almendras said. “Just to clarify, our calculations last week showed that gasoline should have gone up by a maximum 39 cents," he explained. "Now, our agreement with all the oil companies was we round of as we were taught in grade school, which is you round off to the nearest zero—so that should have translated to only a 40-centavo increase,"Almendras said. "But the increase went as high as 60 cents. For diesel, our calculation showed it should have gone up by only 16 centavos, so you round it off to 20 centavos but some companies went as high as 25," he said. – VVP/HS, GMA News