DOE: Another round of fuel price rollbacks possible next week

Motorists and consumers may expect another round of pump price rollbacks in the coming week, Department of Energy (DOE) officials said Wednesday.

At a virtual press briefing, DOE Undersecretary Alessandro Sales said the agency is seeing a downtrend in prices based on the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) over the past two days.

“As of today, prices over the past two days have continued to decline. Even with the pronouncement of President Donald Trump that they would station warships at the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, the market does not appear to be pricing that in, so MOPS has continued to go down,” he said.

“If this market reaction continues, we could see more stable prices or even another rollback,” Sales added.

Energy Secretary Sharon Garin, however, cautioned that the situation in the Middle East remains volatile.

She said the DOE needs to monitor MOPS movements for the rest of the week to make a more accurate projection.

“We need five days to monitor, but hopefully prices won’t go up,” she said.

Effective Tuesday, fuel retailers implemented the first round of rollbacks since the outbreak of the US-Israel-Iran conflict in late February.

The latest rollbacks came after Trump agreed to a ceasefire with Iran, subject to Tehran’s agreement to pause its blockade of oil and gas shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

Over the weekend, however, Trump said the US Navy would immediately blockade the strait after talks with Tehran failed to produce a deal to end the conflict.—MCG, GMA News