Nothing wrong with dealers selling LPG for P500 and up – LPG group

MANILA, Philippines - There is nothing wrong with some liquefied petroleum gas stores selling the cooking gas to consumers for at least P500 per 11-kilogram tank, a group of small LPG players said Tuesday. LPG Marketers Association president Arnel Ty told GMANews.TV in a phone interview that their price monitoring have so far shown that LPG dealers in Metro Manila and neighboring provinces have begun selling their products between P500 and P550 per tank. Ty said this price trend has been triggered only because dealers are merely making up for their lost income in the past few weeks. The LPGMA - a 20-member organization – has over 100 refilling stations nationwide. “Tama lang for them ang ganoong presyo kasi kailangan din nilang kumita (Their prices are just right for them. They have to earn)," Ty said. This, despite the Energy Department’s earlier order placing the suggested retail price (SRP) of an 11-kg LPG tank between P420 and P470. Ty said that since the supply of LPG tanks reaching them turned haywire late last month, their customers – or LPG dealers – began to suffer, ultimately ending up with no LPG tanks to sell to end-user or the common household consumers. The LPGMA president said that by placing the price of LPG tanks slightly higher than the SRP, the LPG dealers are able to recover the amount that they would have otherwise earned had there been enough supply. Dealers line up in our refilling stations for four days waiting for fresh supply. But if they only had enough gas tanks to sell, they would have not lost four days’ worth of income," Ty said in Filipino. Ty said the LPGMA could only do so much to provide ample supply of LPG to the dealers, saying that the association itself is at the mercy of oil companies where they source their own LPG products. “Tight kasi ang supply (from our suppliers) kaya naghihintayan ng matagal (Supply is tight so we had to wait a long time before LPG is delivered to us)," he said. Ty said that the LPGMA itself began experiencing a shortage in supply at the start of the holiday season. He, however, clarified that the supply scarcity was due not to LPG hoarding but rather to a “miscalculation" of demand during the holidays. “There is no hoarding but our suppliers have to admit that they miscalculated the demand causing a delay in the distribution," Ty said. The LPGMA however assured that unlike dealers, it would not further increase its prices, at least for the next three weeks. “Kahit nahihirapan kami ngayon, kaya pa naming tiisin (Even if we are suffering, we can still endure it). We will stick to our prices na hindi kami magtaas hanggang January 31," Ty said. Ty said the LPGMA could still manage to dodge the adverse effects of a shortage supply, especially since they are considering the recent scarcity as only “artificial." “We are giving this one month," he said. Ty’s assurance came after major oil player Pilipinas Shell increased its LPG prices by P2 per liter. - GMANews.TV