Oil Price Seen to Stabilize in Philippines: Energy Official

Oil price seen to stabilize in Philippines: energy official

MANILA, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) — The three-month low of crude oil prices recorded earlier this week in the world market, driven by the diminishing demand, forecast stabilized local pump prices in the Philippines, an energy official said Wednesday.

Energy Secretary Raphael Lotilla said in a radio interview that the strengthening of the country’s currency, peso, and competition among local oil companies were also contributed to the recent reduction in the oil prices.

Local major oil suppliers including Shell, Petron and Caltex cut gasoline prices by 0.75 peso (0.014 US dollar) per liter for gasoline and diesel prices by 0.5 peso per liter Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the exchange rate of peso to US dollar backed to 54: 1 this month due to strong inflows of 10 billion-US dollar remittance from overseas workers so far this year.

Lotilla told the radio dzMM that he expected the local pump prices to remain at current levels or continue to decline in the coming months.

US light crude dropped to a three-month low on Monday at 58.6 dollars a barrel after hitting a record of 70.85 dollars at the end of August.