Less than Piso: Fuel prices to roll back next week

Both gasoline and diesel could go down next Tuesday

For the past couple of weeks, motorists had to endure two consecutive fuel price hikes. While gasoline got a PHP 2 increase overall, it was diesel that received the biggest price increase at PHP 9.55 ever since the price adjustments were implemented.

With another weekend coming to a close, motorists are once again anticipating another possible price hike. Surprisingly, however, current estimates by oil industry experts suggest that fuel prices will actually roll back next week.

However, motorists should not expect prices to drop immensely. According to initial estimates, it's suggested that both gasoline and diesel will go down less than PHP 1 per liter next week. Combined with PH Fuel Watch's estimates that gasoline and diesel might go down PHP 0.69 and PHP 0.90 per liter respectively, next week's rollback will only provide minor relief to motorists.

As to why fuel prices are set to decrease next week, US President Joseph Biden released 15 million barrels of the country's strategic reserves in order to reduce the price of oil. While this will provide some respite, OPEC+'s scheduled cutting of oil production by 2 million barrels per day starting next month means there's still a possibility of gasoline and diesel prices going up in the next few weeks.

While some might say the oil price rollback will have little to no effect next week, a price decrease is a price decrease. Hopefully, rollback prices will increase over the weekend just before the scheduled price adjustment next Tuesday.