Consumers can expect an oil price rollback of as much as P1.80 per liter next week amid fears of an economic crisis in the United States and Europe.
An industry source told the Standard pump prices will go down by P1.50 to P1.80 per liter for diesel and P0.90 to P1.10 per liter for gasoline, based on the four-day trading and the movement of the peso week-on-week.
“There will be an expected rollback for the prices of gasoline, diesel, and kerosene by next week. This is attributed to the fear of economic crisis happening in the US and Europe, as influenced by the weakening of the financial market,” Rodela Romero, Department of Energy director for the Oil Industry Management Bureau, said.
“Volatility in oil prices is seen in the next few weeks with the lingering factors that would push it to go down or go up,” Romero said.
On March 14, the oil companies implemented a price cut of P0.10 for diesel and P0.60 for kerosene but raised the price of gasoline by P1 per liter.
These resulted in a year-to-date net decrease for diesel at P1 per liter and kerosene at P1.65 per liter. Gasoline, on the other hand, has a net increase of P6.70 per liter.
On March 7, the oil companies implemented a per liter increase of P0.40 for gasoline, P1.50 for diesel, and P1.25 for kerosene.
The price see-saw in the past weeks reflected the volatility of world oil prices.