Several oil firms have announced an increase in the pump prices of diesel and kerosene starting this morning.
In separate advisories, Chevron, Cleanfuel, Petro Gazz, Petron, PTT Philippines, Seaoil, Shell, and Unioil said they will hike diesel prices by P0.50 per liter.
There will be no movement in the prices of gasoline.
Chevron, Petron, Seaoil, and Shell will also implement price increases for kerosene products by P0.30 per liter.
According to the Department of Energy’s bulletin, the prices of the commodity have surged since last week, hitting five-month highs on positive news on coronavirus disease 2019 vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.
“The Asian gasoline market was stronger on positive headlines from the US in view of the effectivity of Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, which resulted to a sharp rise in the energy complex across the barrel,” it said.
Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) for the trading week of Nov. 9 to 13 shows gasoline and diesel prices were higher by USD3.50 and USD4.70 per barrel, respectively.
PSEi UP
The Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi), meanwhile, gained yesterday on optimism for the possible Covid-19 vaccine while the peso ended the day sideways against the US dollar.
The main stocks gauge rose by 0.12 percent, or 8.83 points, to 7,178.62 points.
All Shares followed with a jump of 0.83 percent or 34.87 points, to 4,254.26 points.
Most of the sectors tracked the main index, led by the Financials, which increased by 3.33 percent.
Mining and oil also inched up by 2.78 percent, Industrial by 0.48 percent, and Holding Firms by 0.26 percent.
Property index declined by 1.74 percent and Services by 0.03 percent.
Volume totaled to 10.3 billion shares, amounting to P11.93 billion.
Advancers led decliners at 147 to 77, while 45 shares were unchanged.
“The PSEi slightly settled up as positive developments for a vaccine distribution offset negative news of soaring Covid-19 cases and disagreements on new stimulus,” Luis Limlingan, Regina Capital Development Corporation head of sales, said.
The risk-on sentiments benefited the peso, that ended the day sideways against the greenback at 48.205 from 48.23 Friday last week.
It opened the day at 48.23 and traded between 48.23 and 48.165.
Volume declined to USD425.4 million against the previous session’s USD660.6 million.*PNA
