WORLD OIL PRICES ( Feb 18 - 22, 201 3 trading days)

Week - on - week trajectory of oil prices followed a decreasing trend, easing slowly since the start of the week. This is fuelled by worries that the U.S. Federal Reserve cou ld wind down its bond buying programme earlier than expected. A weak economic data out in the US and Europe added to the concerns indicating that the global economy is still struggling.

Specifically, prices sharply dropped nearly two dollars a barrel on 21 February 2012 due to:

• Concerns about the future of quantitative easing in the US that may soon allow interest rates to rise and reduce the supply of easy cash, which investors have been using to buy commodities like oil ;
• Further builds in US crude inve ntory for the week ending Feb. 15, Crude supplies rose by 4.1 million barrels, greater than analyst’s expect ation of 2 million - barrel climb;
• li>Reports of increase production from the Saudis during the second quarter that prompted some non - commercial market p articipants to liquidate their long futures positions .

With regard to gasoline, while week - on - week average dropped by about a dollar high octane grades reportedly remained strong, as it picked up again nearly a dollar last Friday, due to dearth of regiona l supply. "There is shortage of octanes as we head deeper to turnaround season", Platts noted.

Meanwhile, the recent fall in Asian gasoil/diesel was likely due to fairly slow regional demand for the product.

Week - on - week, MOPS Dubai crude declined b y about US$2 /bbl . MOPS gasoline and diesel decreased as well by more than a dollar.

FOREX: The week - on - week peso per US dollar de p reciated by P0. 0 1 to P4 0 . 6 7 , from P4 0. 6 6 in previous week .

Other recommended reference sites: (1) http://www.aip.com.au/pricing (2) http://www.med.govt.nz/ers/oil_pet/prices/prices.html

DOMESTIC OIL PRICES

Effective 25 February 2013, most of the oil companies implemented a price rollback of P0.35/liter for gasoline, P0.45/liter for diesel, P0.70/liter for kerosene and P0.85/liter for regular gasoline .

Following these adjustments, the year - to - date net increase for gasoline and diesel declined, and now stands at P3.05 /l and P2.05 /l , respectively.

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