Consumers can expect a mixed oil price movement next week with gasoline and diesel going up while kerosene will have no adjustment or may increase or decrease of P0.20 per liter.
Department of Energy Oil Industry Management Bureau (OIMB) director Rodela Romero said yesterday gasoline pump prices may increase by P0.30 to P0.70 per liter and diesel by P0.20 to P0.60 per liter.
Romero said next week’s oil price movement was driven by US president Donald Trump’s announcement of reciprocal tariffs on trading partners including EU, China and Korea, which stoked concerns that a global trade war may dampen demand for crude.
However, Romero said oil prices dipped slightly as worries about the impact of the trade war on global growth outweighed concern about a hit to supply from threats by US to impose secondary tariffs on Russian crude.
She said another factor involve China’s refineries, which are expected to decline in March and April, with the peak maintenance season thus having an impact on supply.
“Final adjustments will be determined after today’s [Friday] last trading day,” Romero said.
Jetti Petroleum president Leo Bellas said that based on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) and forex average for the first 4 days versus last week’s full week average, gasoline prices will likely go up by P0.50 to P0.70 per liter and diesel by P0.40 to P0.60 per liter.
“Prices are on track to increase on worries that global oil supply could be constrained if stricter sanctions and secondary tariffs on Iran, Venezuela and Russia are imposed. Potential supply disruptions due to geopolitical concerns, refinery outages in Russia, and cutting of Kazakhstan’s oil output have also supported prices,” Bellas said.
“However, prices have eased down as concerns the new US tariffs would escalate a global trade war, curtailing economic growth and limit crude demand. The prospect of rising supply after OPEC+ agreed to hike its oil output in May also weighed on prices due to the risk of an oversupplied market. The large increase in US crude inventories reinforced the bearish sentiment,” he said.
Effective April 1, 2025, local oil companies implemented a price increase of P1.40 per liter for gasoline and P1.20 per liter for diesel and kerosene.
Year-to-date, gasoline have a total net increase of P4.65 per liter, diesel by P4.45 per per liter and kerosene by P0.90 per liter.