A rebound in international crude oil prices and the depreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against its US counterpart mean that domestic gasoline and diesel prices will both edge up NT$0.5 per liter today.
The price increase follows three consecutive weekly decreases since the beginning of this month when the method by which domestic oil prices are calculated was implemented on a weekly, rather than monthly, basis.
State-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and rival Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) both increased their domestic oil prices by the same amount.
Following the price increase, the retail price for 98-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$35 per liter, 95-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$33.5 per liter, 92-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$32.8 per liter and diesel is NT$30.6 per liter.
Crude oil prices remained volatile this week as Tropical Storm Gustav approached the Gulf of Mexico, traders remaining concerned that the storm could damage oil facilities in the area. It is estimated that the situation will become clearer today.
“If Tropical Storm Gustav continues to strengthen and move toward the New Orleans area, it will significantly impact the area and a lot of people are afraid that there will be a replay of the Hurricane Katrina incident [in 2005],” Liang Kuo-yuan (梁國源), president of the Polaris Research Institute (寶華綜合經濟研究院), said by telephone yesterday.
Liang estimated that international crude oil prices would likely average between US$100 and US$130 a barrel this year. However, if the storm directly hits the Gulf of Mexico, which plays an important role in US domestic oil production, the price could increase to as high as US$140 a barrel, he said.
Global crude oil prices have tumbled since hitting record highs above US$147 a barrel on July 11. Cheng Cheng-mount (鄭貞茂), chief economist at Citigroup Inc in Taiwan, said inflationary pressures would gradually ease during the coming months.
“We estimate that this month’s headline CPI inflation likely eased from its 12-year high last month. Inflationary pressure eased mainly on lower diesel and gasoline prices,” he wrote in a client note yesterday.
The government’s statistics bureau is scheduled to release the latest inflation data on Friday. Citigroup estimates the consumer price index will rise 4.3 percent this month from a year earlier, after the index rose 5.92 percent last month year-on-year.
Additional reporting by Kevin Chen
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”