THE country’s oil firms rolled back pump prices by P0.40 per liter for gasoline but raised the price of diesel and kerosene prices by P0.35 per liter and P0.30 per liter effective Tuesday.
Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp., Seaoil Philippines, PTT Philippines, Eastern Petroleum and Flying V issued separate advisories of the latest price movement that will be reflected starting 6 a.m. Feb. 28.
Energy Department director Melita Obillo said there is oversupply of gasoline “especially with the increasing inventories in the US” thus prices of gasoline went down.
Obillo said diesel prices, however, went up because of speculations of tight supply after two Indonesian refineries bared plans to have a maintenance shutdown in the next few weeks.
Analysts are warily watching the movement of oil prices amid conflicting supply trends. While there has been a push to cut production from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, there has been continuing uptrend in the US drilling rig.