Local oil players have raised the cost of petroleum products for the third consecutive week to reflect international market movements.
The price movement is mainly driven by continuing market hopes that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies will possibly delay the planned increase in oil output next year as they meet this week.
The Department of Energy has pegged the latest average Manila price per liter of gasoline (RON95) at P49.02, diesel at P35.11 and kerosene, P37.91.
Shell and Seaoil adjusted per liter prices upward by P1.15 for gasoline and P1.10 for both diesel and kerosene.
As of November 24, year-to-date adjustments on fuel prices summed up to a net decrease of P4.62 per liter for gasoline, P8.86 per liter for diesel and P12.29 per liter for kerosene.
Reuters reported that as of Friday last week, brent crude January futures settled at $48.18 a barrel while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures ended at $45.53 a barrel.
Prior to this week’s meeting, OPEC and its allies originally wanted to raise output by 2 million barrels per day in January or about 2 percent of global consumption after record supply cuts this year.
However, analysts said in the same report that even if vaccines against the new coronavirus are expected to be produced soon, global oil demand is seen to reach its pre-pandemic levels not until mid-2022.
