MANILA – A day after its competitors lifted the price freeze on oil products in selected areas earlier hit by massive flooding, largest oil refiner Petron Corp. followed at past midnight yesterday to impose the same level of pump price hikes that had earlier been enforced by its rival oil companies.

Petron said “it will be matching the price adjustments of competition in areas affected by the floods last week effective 12:01 a.m., August 21."

Oil firms on Monday morning implemented price hikes of P1.80 per liter on premium and unleaded gasoline, P1.70 per liter on regular gasoline, P1.60 per liter on kerosene and P1.50 per liter on diesel.

The adjustment specifically took effect in areas that were previously covered by an industry-wide price freeze last week, particularly Metro Manila, Bataan, Pampanga, Zambales, Bulacan, Laguna, Cavite and Tarlac.

With the price increase, Petron said fuel prices in the said areas would now “normalize”, or be at pace with prices in other parts of the country that were not covered by the one-week hike moratorium.

This week’s hike was practically a cent-by-cent deferment of the one imposed by petroleum companies the previous week, which took effect only in non-calamity areas.

Oil firms decided to defer last week’s wave of fuel hikes in order to allow the various communities to recover from the recent episode of devastating floods caused by heavy southwest monsoon rains.

On a nationwide scale, oil firms have now jacked up pump prices for six consecutive weeks. They pointed to the uptrend in international prices as reason for the successive upward adjustments.*PNA

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