WITH apparently no instant relief in sight for consumers from the nonstop rocketing of fuel pump prices until the yearend at the least, a senior lawmaker on Wednesday upbraided the Department of Energy (DOE) for “moving at an apparent turtle’s pace” on a two-year-old DOE circular establishing a Strategic Petroleum Reserve Program (SPRP) to ease the impact
WITH apparently no instant relief in sight for consumers from the nonstop rocketing of fuel pump prices until the yearend at the least, a senior lawmaker on Wednesday upbraided the Department of Energy for “moving at an apparent turtle’s pace” on a two-year-old DOE circular establishing a Strategic Petroleum Reserve Program to ease the impact of global oil shocks on the public.
Following a recent consultative meeting with House Speaker Martin G. Romualdez and top executives of oil companies, Villafuerte said DOE officials have said the weekly gasoline and diesel price hikes for almost three months now are likely to continue till the year’s last quarter because of the combination of rising global demand and supply and export cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia.
He said sky-high fuel rates and rising food prices, which are partly a result of the higher transport costs of producers and traders, are mainly responsible for the sticky elevated inflation, which is expected to remain high for the rest of the year—and have already prompted financial analysts, such as those from ANZ Research, Nomura Global Markets Research, and Moody’s Analytics to downgrade their growth forecasts for the Philippines for the full year of 2023.
“But it seems this SPRP is still moving at an apparent turtle’s pace—if it is moving at all—at the DOE, given that we have heard nothing about the progress of this plan ever since it was formally put in motion exactly two years ago this month,” he added.
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