Oil Monitor as of 21 March 2023

Date published: March 22, 2023

WORLD OIL PRICES (March 13-17, 2023 trading days)

The week-on-week price of Dubai crude has decreased by almost $5.00/bbl . MOPS prices of gasoline, diesel and kerosene have also decreased per barrel by about $3.50, $4.90 and $5.00, respectively.

Reasons for the Price Adjustment1

  • Oil prices slumped this week as fears around the stability of the US and European banking system in the aftermath of the collapse of two regional American banks -Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank -sparked a selloff in risky assets across global markets. The flagship Swiss lender Credit Suisse saw its shares plummeted 30% earlier this week after the bank’s largest investor said it wouldn’t provide further financial assistance, prompting Switzerland’s central bank to loan the bank up to 50 billion francs ($54 billion) to calm investors.
    • In the US, Wall Street’s largest banks came together to deposit $30 billion in San Francisco-based First Republic Bank to stop the US’s spiraling banking crisis. The market remains focused on what the US Federal Reserve will do at its FOMC meeting next week. Prior to the recent banking crisis, the expectation was that the Fed would likely boost interest rates by 25 or 50 basis points to combat elevated inflation.
    • On supply/demand fundamentals, Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak met in Riyadh March 16 and reaffirmed the OPEC+ group’s commitment to production cuts of 2 million b/d until the end of 2023.
  • Asian gasoline crack strengthened as supply is expected to tighten due to regional refinery turn arounds and reduced exports from China. US gasoline stocks fell.
  • Gasoline exports from China are expected to drop significantly in March as domestic consumption gets supports from pent-up demand following the easing of COVID-19 travel restrictions. Most recently, the Chinese government resumed issuing all types of visas to foreign visitors starting from March 15.
  • Asian gasoil/diesel crack weakened amid unattractive East-West arbitrage economics, but the market is expected to get some support from tightening regional supply. Middle distillate stocks continued to surge in Singapore and Fujairah.

FOREX: The week-on-week average of Philippine peso appreciated versus the US dollar by P0.26 to P54.89 from P55.15 in previous week.

DOMESTIC OIL PRICES

Effective 21 March 2023, the oil companies implemented a per liter decrease of P1.20 for gasoline, P1.85 for diesel and P2.00 for kerosene.

These resulted to a year-to-date net decrease for diesel at P2.85/liter and kerosene at P3.65/liter. Gasoline on the other hand, has a net increase of P5.50/liter.

For the updated prevailing retail pump price, please browse this link: https://www.doe.gov.ph/price-monitoring-charts?q=retail-pump-prices-metro-manila.

Other recommended reference sites:
    • http://www.aip.com.au/pricing
    • http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=crude-oil-dubai
    • https://www.quandl.com/data/ODA/POILDUB_USD-Dubai-Crude-Oil-Price

For more information, call the

Department of Energy
Pricing: 840-2187
LPG: 840-2130
Fuels: 840-5669
Website: https://www.doe.gov.ph

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1 Asia-Pacific Weekly Recap 10 March 2023 by S&P Global Platts Analytics

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