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By Euan Paulo C. Añonuevo, Reporter
THE Department of Energy should make public the inventory and value
of shipments of oil firms to help protect consumer interest in the
wake of the fluctuations in pump prices, a lobby group said.
Raul Concepcion, Consumer and Oil Price Watch
(COPW) chairman, said the department should provide oil companies’
inventory and shipments value to the public to dispel doubts and
confusion on price movements.
“The [agency] has the authority as provided by
the safeguard provisions of the Oil Deregulation Law to require the
oil companies to submit the volume and value of their shipments as
they arrive,” he said.
Under the said law, oil companies are required
to submit the volume and value of their shipments as they arrive to
the Office of the Energy Secretary and to the joint energy and
justice departments task force so it can determine whether reflected
prices are reasonable or not.
“The [energy department] must be the final
arbiter of what price is fair to the consumer,” Concepcion said.
He said that despite the series of price
adjustments, the total rollback for January should be P8 a liter for
diesel and gasoline. “Our computations based on price movements in
the world market show that the recent rollback totaling P1 is P3
short of our expectations,” he said.
Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. had initiated
price cuts ranging from P0.50 to P1 a liter that led other industry
players to follow suit.
Concepcion however had said that oil companies
could have implemented weekly rollbacks of P2 a liter as of January
17 in light of the drop in international prices of crude.
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