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DESPITE
earlier claims that the current downtrend in world oil
prices is not enough to merit a price cut, local oil
companies announced on Wednesday they would reduce the
price of gasoline, diesel and kerosene by P1 per liter
effective Thursday morning.
Oil
companies Chevron Philippines Inc., Eastern Petroleum
Corp., Petron Corp., Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. and
Seaoil Philippines Corp. said the latest price cut is
being initiated to reflect the softening of world oil
prices.
The
latest price cut brings the total amount of rollback to
P11.50/liter and P9.50/liter for gasoline and diesel,
respectively.
It also
comes just a day after lawmakers in both houses of
Congress floated the idea of an excess profit tax for
oil companies operating in the country if they keep
rejecting outright calls for further price rollbacks,
even though prices of crude in the world market have
been quickly plunging the past days.
Those
who indicated their willingness to sponsor such a bill
are Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. of Makati City and Sen. Juan
Ponce Enrile.
The
Department of Energy monitoring said Dubai crude
averaged $82.78/ barrel this month from $95.90/barrel in
September. It further noted that Mean of Platts
Singapore (MOPS)-based gasoline averaged $96.37/barrel
in October from $107.10/barrel in September, and that
MOPS-based diesel averaged $104.39/barrel this month
from $121.01/barrel in September.
The DOE
said the international contract price has also dropped
by $24 to $804 per metric ton (MT) in October and $828
per MT in September.
On
Monday the oil executives admitted to Energy Secretary
Angelo Reyes that while current world oil prices have
dropped substantially, still it was not enough to
justify a price cut this week.
“We
cannot bring prices down much now, since it is not
called for in view of the costs,” Jose Campos, Petron
vice president for marketing, told attendees of the
meeting.
Other
oil executives at the meeting echoed Campos’s statement,
saying the price for this month is not low enough
compared with the previous month’s to prompt a rollback.
Fernando
Martinez, chairman and chief executive of Eastern
Petroleum Corp., said another option for oil companies
is to just keep prices at their current levels.
He noted
that even after the government had imposed a tariff on
oil, petroleum companies did not use it as a reason to
increase prices.
“We are
surviving, but not doing fantastically fine,” said
Martinez, pointing out that the government does not
subsidize prices and that it is the oil companies that
provide discounts to public transport groups.
Meanwhile, Malacañang said on Wednesday that while it
cannot impose a price cut among the oil companies
because they belong to a deregulated industry, it can
undertake “certain measures to protect the public
interest” if oil industry players prove to be
“unreasonable” in their reluctance to implement a price
cut despite lower world oil prices.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said in his weekly
news briefing the Executive hopes that the oil firms
would heed the public outcry for lower oil prices,
especially as world prices have gone down over the past
weeks.
On moves
to junk the oil deregulation law, Ermita said that
Palace officials “cannot really say that our mind is
closed to that.”
Asked to
comment on the remark of Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile that the
government can impose windfall taxes on oil firms if
they refuse to roll back fuel prices despite lower world
oil prices, Ermita said, “If we see that there is
unreasonability on the part of the oil companies, then
the government can very well take certain measures to
protect the public interest.” |
