Effective today, domestic gasoline and diesel prices will go down by NT$2 per liter and NT$2.2 per liter respectively, state-owned CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday.
The price drop is the first since Sept. 2 last year, when CPC lowered its gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.6 per liter and NT$0.7 per liter respectively.
After the latest adjustment, CPC’s wholesale price for 92-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$33.4 per liter, NT$34.1 for 95-octane unleaded gasoline, NT$35.6 for 98-octane unleaded gasoline and NT$31.3 for diesel.
Under the new oil price mechanism, the price adjustments were determined by comparing the average oil price between Aug. 1 and Aug. 7 with the average oil price in June, which was US$129.2 per barrel, with exchange rate fluctuations factored in.
Under the government policy, the drop in prices was larger than CPC would have implemented. CPC said for example that the price of 92-octane unleaded gasoline should only be lowered by NT$0.2 per liter this week. But the NT$2 per liter drop factors in the NT$1.3 per liter absorbed by CPC since May 28 and the NT$0.5 per liter absorbed since Aug. 2.
CPC saw a loss of NT$50 billion as of the end of last month.
Following CPC’s announcement, Formosa Petrochemical Corp (FPC, 台塑石化), the nation’s only privately owned oil refiner, said last night it would drop its domestic gasoline and diesel prices by NT$2 per liter and NT$1.6 per liter respectively, effective midnight tonight.
Both CPC and FPC’s announcements of price cuts came after consumer prices surged 5.92 percent year-on-year last month, the highest level in nearly 14 years, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said on Tuesday.
In response to inflation driven primarily by rising food and fuel costs, Yum! Restaurants (Taiwan) Co (台灣百勝肯德雞), which operated the fast food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in Taiwan, said it would raise prices by as much as 10 percent beginning yesterday.
The company said in its statement on Thursday that the prices of chicken, eggs, cooking oil, dairy products, plastics and paper had surged between 20 percent and 50 percent, making a price hike necessary.
Last week, McDonald’s Corp said it would increase prices by an average of 20 percent beginning this month to reflect higher food and power costs.
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