Declining global energy prices and Ph electricity pricing

Among the unintentional results of the ongoing tariff war between the US and China plus other countries is low global energy prices.

- Bienvenido S. Oplas Jr.

World oil, gas, and coal prices have been declining since late 2024, but prices further dipped this week.

The main reason is that many companies expect global growth slowdown this year, and demand for energy is expected to decline while supply will rise, if not stabilize, at a high level, like Trump's drill-baby-drill policy. So there is little need to stockpile hydrocarbons and coal. And prices fall further.

Here are the prices in the first week of April in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 (April 7), respectively:

WTI crude, $ per barrel: 97.01, 80.68, 85.66, 57.90.

Dubai crude, $ per barrel: 103.27, 84.59, 90.53, 67.17.

Natural gas, $ per million British thermal units (MMBtu): 6.36, 2.01, 2.03, 3.48.

Coal (Newcastle), $ per ton: 291.60, 193.75, 133.75, 97.50.

The period of low energy prices is a good opportunity to ramp up industrial capacity or other energy-intensive sectors like tourism (hotels, airlines, cruise ships, etc.) and manufacturing. A good time to travel too, especially in the Holy Week season next week.

Higher domestic electricity prices

The Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) released last week the results of power supply, demand, and prices for March. From cold February to hot March, demand increased significantly from 12,904 megawatts (MW) to 13,670 MW while supply declined from 20,512 MW to 19,611 MW. Some power plants were also strained by the heat and suffered forced outages or unscheduled shutdown and derating or reduced capacity.