JustDario 🏊♂️@DarioCpx
I am currently in the Philippines 🇵🇭 and I asked some of the locals how’s the situation with oil here since, to my surprise, I saw no panic whatsoever so far.
✅ Gasoline is up from ~60PHP to ~140PHP (or ~2.32$) per L in a month
❌ Demand not only hasn’t decreased so far, but because of rush to get extra oil before price increases further, people and businesses bought more Gasoline and Diesel
⚠️ Every single business is including higher fuel costs into prices, but they haven’t seen drop in demand or bookings for the summer season
✅ People are aware there might be significant less fuel available soon, but nobody is cutting on his own consumption saying they plan to adapt if the scarcity will effectively manifest itself
Overall the approach to the matter feels like “isn’t going to be just my problem, but everyone’s so no need to stress about it.”
❌ HK and Philippines airports were packed, no flight cancellations whatsoever because of lack of Jet Fuel.
My overall feeling about this anecdotal experience so far is that everyone thinks this is just a temporary problem. Contrary to what we read in the news, I don’t see much planning ahead concretely. This also leads me to believe that the price point where we will start seeing demand destruction is much much higher than current projections of 150$ or even 200$. If this is the case for a country like Philippines I believe is fair to assume the price point is even higher for developed economies.
Talking to other friends currently in Indonesia, China, Australia, Taiwan or Japan they shared similar accounts of what I observed here. The only person who flagged me significant impact is the manager of a factory in Europe that makes plastic products and after Easter they plan to cut production from 3 shifts a day to 2 shifts not because of high prices but because their suppliers already cut the deliveries of oil raw materials they agreed to before.
Clearly life will goes on till troubles, eventually, materialise.
