Gasoline up; diesel down

After a few weeks of rollback, the prices of gasoline at the domestic petroleum pumps will be on a slight uptick starting Tuesday due to cost upswings driven by higher demand.

In separate advisories on Monday, oil companies announced that the prices of gasoline will increase by P1.40 per liter.

The prices of diesel and kerosene, on the other hand, will decline by P0.50 per liter and P0.35 per liter, respectively.

Oil Industry Management Bureau Assistant Director Rodela Romero said "many lingering factors in the world market" led to the mixed movement of oil prices this week, including price increases of petroleum products during the winter season and seasonality of demand.

"November is the said production cut that OPEC member countries will do, and the geopolitical conflict that is happening in Russia and Ukraine is still yet resolved," Romero said.

"There is also this fear that due to the increase in prices, there will be global inflation and at the same time, there will be a global recession. So, when that happens, there is a chance that the demand will decrease. So, with the decrease in demand, the price of petroleum products may also decrease," she added.

Based on the oil monitoring data from the Department of Energy, the cumulative increase in gasoline price as of 2 November stood at P15.85 per liter, diesel at P36.80 per liter, and kerosene at P28.95 per liter.

As of 3 November, the price per liter of gasoline ranges from P59.95 to P71.10 per liter in Quezon City, Metro Manila's largest city.

Diesel prices, meanwhile, range from P75.50 to P80.29 per liter in Makati City, the country's top financial hub.

In Manila, kerosene sells from P79.46 to P88.50 per liter.

Oil companies announce price adjustments every Monday to be implemented the following day's morning.

They adjust their prices weekly based on the movement of the Mean of Platts Singapore — the regional pricing benchmark adopted by the deregulated downstream oil sector.