The Philippines recorded a 17% drop in its net oil imports for the first half of the year, from $9.83 billion in the same period last year to $8.16 billion, the Department of Energy (DOE) said.
In a report by the Business Mirror, the net import bill stands to differentiate between the country’s oil imports and exports. The DOE reported a total volume of 13.45 billion liters as of the end of June this year, showing an increase from the 12.91 billion liters in the same semester last year.
The total oil import bill for the country totaled $8.38 billion, reflecting a 16.6% decrease compared to the $10.06 billion recorded at the end of June 2022. In terms of volume, the total imports slightly increased from 13.10 billion liters to 13.76 billion liters.
The reduction in the import bill could be traced to the lower cost of crude and finished petroleum products during the first half of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.
In total, 21.8 percent of the imports were crude oil and 78.2 percent represented finished items.
Furthermore, the data revealed that the total crude imports reached up to $1.825 billion, marking a 6.3% reduction from the $1.949 billion recorded in the same period the previous year.
The volume of imported crude oil increased by 23.7%, reaching 3.476 billion liters at the end of June this year, compared to the previous year’s 2.811 billion liters.
All crude oil imported during the first half of this year was sourced from the Middle East, with 50.2% coming from Saudi Arabia, 26.9% from the UAE, and the remaining 22.9% from Iraq.
Meanwhile, the importation of petroleum products remained relatively stable at 10.281 billion liters, with a slight decrease from 10.291 billion liters in the previous year.
The most imported product during this period was aviation turbo at 42.6%, likely due to the lifting of travel restrictions. Importation of fuel oil and gasoline products also grew, by 27.5% and 6.3%, respectively.
The majority of imported finished petroleum products came from South Korea at 25.37%, followed by China at 24.44%, Singapore at 23.79%, Malaysia at 12.58%, and Japan at 4.28%.
On the export front, the Philippines generated export earnings amounting to $223.16 million, reflecting a slight decrease of 1.5 percent from $226.57 million.
As for the volume, total petroleum product exports increased to 303 million liters from 192 million liters.
These petroleum products included fuel oil at 17.1%, naphtha at 35%, mixed xylene at 19.4%, toluene at 11.3%, benzene at 4.2%, propylene at 3%, and molten sulfur at 10%.
The total crude oil that was exported during this period increased by 3.5% to 47.9 million liters from 46.3 million liters in the previous year. Thailand was the destination for the exported crude.
