The oil distributors raised pump prices by P0.25 per liter of gasoline, P0.20 per liter of diesel and P0.10 per liter of kerosene effective 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday to reflect the movement of prices in the world oil market.
The companies that announced the increases included Unioil Philippines, PTT Philippines, Seaoil Philippines, Chevron Philippines, PetroGazz and Eastern Petroleum Philippines.
Meanwhile, grid operator National Grid Corporation of the Philippines again put the Luzon grid on yellow alert from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Monday following the continuing low power reserves in the grid.
NGCP raised the alert due to insufficient operating reserves brought on by the high system demand and the forced or unplanned outages of power plants.
The available capacity in the Luzon grid was placed at 11,267 megawatts against the peak demand of 10,438MW.
The yellow alert is raised when the reserves fall below the single biggest power plant unit in the Luzon grid.
Maria Alegria Sibal-Limjoco, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the low power reserves should be addressed.
“There are power plants in the pipeline whose power supply contracts have yet to be approved. It is high time government revisited those contracts,” she said.
Unioil had forecast that pump prices would go up by P0.10 to P0.15 per liter of diesel and P0.15 to P0.25 per liter of gasoline this week.
On April 2, the oil firms rolled back the price of diesel by P0.30 per liter, kerosene by P0.20 per liter and gasoline by P0.10 per liter.
The rollback put an end to the seventh successive round of weekly oil price increase.
The price adjustments since the start of the year resulted in a net increase of P6.80 per liter of gasoline, P4.65 per liter of diesel and P3.45 per liter of kerosene.
World oil prices went up amid the expectations of a tight global supply despite pressures arising from the increasingly rising US production that edged to a new record high, the Department of Energy said.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and producer allies such as Russia agreed to cut output by 1.2 million barrels per day to prevent a supply overhang from growing.
The US sanctions on Iranian and Venezuelan crude and reports that a trade deal with China was getting close and could be reached in about four weeks also helped push prices upward.