ESCALATING world oil prices prompted local oil companies anew to increase their diesel prices by P1 per liter.

As of 12:01 a.m. on Monday, Chevron Philippines Inc. and Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. led the P1/liter diesel-price increase followed by Petron Corp., Phoenix Petroleum Philippines Inc., Seaoil Philippines Inc., and Total (Philippines) Corp. on Monday morning.

They also increased kerosene prices by 50 centavos per liter.

But the oil companies reduced the price of unleaded and premium gasoline by 70 centavos per liter and regular gasoline by 90 centavos per liter.

The rollback in unleaded and premium gasoline prices, according to the oil companies, could be attributed to the downtrend in world gasoline prices.

As of October 25, a Department of Energy (DOE) report showed that the average price of Dubai crude had increased by $2.28 per barrel higher than the average of the preceding week.

The DOE said the average price of Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS)-based diesel also increased by $3.20 per barrel, while MOPS-based unleaded gasoline dropped by about $5 per barrel compared to the previous week.

The report said rising hopes of a swift resolution to the long-running sovereign-debt crisis in the euro zone and the lower crude demand forecasts of the International Energy Agency (IEA) pushed prices to increase.

“The IEA followed Opec in trimming its forecasts for crude oil demand this year and 2012, though it still expects world demand to hit a record this year, but lower than previously expected,” the DOE report said.

The report noted that oil prices, however, slightly weakened by the end of the week as investors waited for the upcoming announcement of the broad-based solution to the euro- zone debt crisis.

It also added that the death of the former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi did not have any major negative impact on oil price, even if this increased the chances of a peaceful new beginning for Libya, the third-largest African oil producer.

The DOE said Libya was producing about 1.6 million barrels per day of mostly high-value light sweet crude before the uprising at the start of the year, and that around 85 percent of Libyan output was exported to Europe.