WORLD OIL PRICES (August 24-28, 2015 trading days)

The oil markets extended previous week’s decline, along with global equity markets last Monday, as worries over slowing Chinese economic growth intensified. This mounted concerns over oil demand in China, the world's second-largest economy and consumer of crude oil, and caused world crude prices to struck new six-year lows.

World analysts also cited market worries about the upcoming new Iranian supplies, increasing US drilling activity and coming up maintenance season for refineries that would basically awash the market with crude for a longer period.

However, crude futures soared by about 10 percent higher Thursday, apparently due to recovering equity stock markets and outages (due to reported leaks) in two major Nigerians pipeline. Traders called it the biggest one-day rally in over six years, though they believe that it may not be long- lasting. Analysts also remain cautious about whether the rally signals the oil price decline is over.

Meanwhile, Platts disclosed that the decline in US gasoline prices and a steady stream of regional supplies weighed down Asia's gasoline market. However, surging energy complex and fresh regional spot demand provided a boost sentiment last Friday after the benchmark 92 RON gasoline crack against front month Brent futures fell to a four-month low of $9.98/b Thursday.

In the Asian gasoil/diesel market, fundamentals were reportedly steady with the oversupply still casting a shadow on the market, while demand remained generally stable. The Singapore gasoil market is partially supported by recent refinery run cuts in North Asia and unexpected plant outages, which pulled up the East-West spread. As of Friday, Platts further stressed about the convergence in Singapore 10 ppm and 500 ppm sulfur gasoil prices, as the ultra-low sulfur grade collapsed amid ample supplies while the low sulfur grade continued to firm, bolstered by robust demand from West Africa.

Overall, Dubai crude decreased week-on-week by about US$3.60 to nearly US$44/bbl. MOPS gasoline also decreased by roughly US$5.70 to around US$56/bbl; diesel by almost US$2.80 to US$54/bbl.

FOREX: Week-on-week Peso/US$ rate depreciated by P0.38 to P46.71, from P46.33 in previous week.

Other recommended reference site: http://www.aip.com.au/pricing

DOMESTIC OIL PRICES

Effective 30 August 2015, most of the oil companies rolled back their prices of gasoline by P1.45/liter, diesel by P0.70/liter and kerosene by P0.90/liter.

The price of LPG was also decreased by P2.25/kg effective 01 September 2015. This was due to the reduction in LPG Contract Price by US$53.50/MT to US$336.00, from US$389.50 in August.

* RON 95

For more information, call the

Department of Energy:
Pricing: 840-2187
LPG: 840-2130
Fuels: 840-5669
SMS: (0915) 4469421
Email: oilmonitor@doe.gov.ph
Website: http://www.doe.gov.ph