WORLD OIL PRICES (Nov 11-15, 2013 trading days)

Crude oil price was in mixed trend over the past four days, though losses were overshadowed by the recent increasing factors.  Following are the factors that are currently affecting the market:

Downward

• Bigger-than-expected increase in US crude inventories, the eighth-week consecutive per US Department of Energy.  The build-up ending 8 November 2013 was more than double the average forecast of one million barrels;
• US-DOE report that  the U.S. produced more crude oil than it imported in October, the first time since 1995 ( 7.7 million barrels a day against 7.6 million barrels a day);
• US crude oil production looks set to grow to 8.9 million barrels per day by the end of 2014, while crude oil imports are expected to drop to 5.8 million barrels per day

Upward

• Concern over Libyan oil production, reinforcing supply worry;
• Protests and disruptions at refineries in Libya, a vital supplier to Europe;
• Increased estimate of the IEA for global oil demand this year by 45,000 barrels per day to 91.0 million barrels a day;
• Plans of Fed chair nominee Janet Yellen to keep her predecessor's economic stimulus in place pending further improvement in the U.S. economy.

As regards the oil products in Asia, Platts noted of positive market sentiment for Asian gasoline due to sustained strength in the US that has helped lift regional cracks to a three-month high this week. Besides the West-driven optimism, regional cracks are being supported by expectations of tightening fundamentals heading into the year- end, given the absence of spot gasoline export offers from Taiwan for December.  All cargoes from Taiwan were tied in term contracts.  Platts underscored of tight supply, which has pushed the 92 RON gasoline cash-paper spread over the past week to a three-month high.

On the other hand, activity in the Asian gasoil market remained largely focused on discussions for 2014 term deals.  Prices in the meantime refrained from the previous week’s reports of tight supply amid a spike in Indonesian demand in November.

FOREX: Peso per US dollar rate depreciated week-on-week by P0.33 to 43.60, from P43.27 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 19 November 2013, most of the oil companies implemented an increase of P1.10 for gasoline. This however, is not applied in the areas that were affected by the typhoon.

No increase was effected for diesel and kerosene.

Year-to-date net increase for gasoline and diesel stands now at P1.24 and P2.03 per liter respectively.

* RON 93

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