The effect of the Iran war on a poorer country

Again, for those who may not know, I live most of the year (49 weeks) in the Central Philippines and usually visit the US for a couple of weeks a year. I'm retired here with my Filipina wife. Having said that. here's an update.

Surprisingly, the petrol costs here have stabilized and are actually in line with US costs. This week, the Philippine price for Deisel is 81.50 PHP per liter ($4.98 a gallon). That's less than the price of Deisel in Boston. Gasoline is a little more than Boston, at about $4.85 a gallon. Most passenger vehicles and all farm equipment run on Deisel here in the Philippines.

When the war started, the prices were double what they are today in the Philippines. How and why they have gone down and remained stable is beyond me. I know the government has been buying Russian crude and have replace some Middle East imports with US and Canadian imports, but it remains a remarkable surprise. The Philippines (pre-war) use about 480,000 barrels of oil a day and produces just 1,000 barrels. They imported 90% of their oil through the Strait of Hormuz and most of it need to go to a third country to be refined. I expected a catastrophe when the war started, but, so far, it has become no more than a manageable increase for me. For the average Filipino, I'm sure, it is a hardship. The next shoe to drop is fertilizer prices. As a part owner of a farm in Iloilo Province, we are anticipating a hefty increase. We'll see.