Gasoline attendant Efren Pascual fills the tank of a customer’s car at Mobil Oil Marianas station on Middle Road in Garapan on Wednesday.
MOBIL Oil Marianas and Shell Marianas on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively reduced their fuel prices by 10 cents for the third time since August.
The previous price rollback happened last week.
This time, the regular gas price dropped to $5.169 a gallon from $5.269 a gallon; Mobil’s premium gas price dropped to $5.619 a gallon from $5.719 a gallon; and the diesel price dropped to $5.339 a gallon from $5.439 a gallon.
Tinian Fuel Services reduced its regular gas price to $7.159 a gallon from $7.489 a gallon, and its diesel price to $7.509 a gallon from $7.85 a gallon.
Calvo Enterprises on Rota had yet to follow suit. Its regular gas price as of Wednesday was still $6.64 a gallon while diesel was still $9.97 a gallon.
Frances Joan Kaipat, a government employee, said, “It feels great,” referring to the latest rollback. She said fuel prices have to go down during these hard times. Whenever gas price goes up, she said, she ends up spending more on fuel. She said people should fill up their gas tanks now before prices go up again.
Global prices
According to Reuters, global oil benchmark Brent crude futures settled at their lowest level since December 2021 on Tuesday after OPEC+ revised down its demand forecast for this year and 2025, offsetting supply concerns from Tropical Storm Francine.
Brent crude futures settled down $2.65, or 3.69%, at $69.19 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude settled down $2.96, or 4.31%, to $65.75 a barrel, Reuters reported.
For its part, the “Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries…in a monthly report said world oil demand would rise by 2.03 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2024, down from last month’s forecast for growth of 2.11 million bpd,” Reuters said.
It added that “OPEC also cut its 2025 global demand growth estimate to 1.74 million bpd from 1.78 million bpd. Prices slid on the weakening global demand prospects and expectations of oil oversupply.”
