The nation’s two oil refiners yesterday announced they were cutting prices for gasoline by NT$1.1 per liter and for diesel by NT$1.4 per liter, effective today.
The two companies’ latest price adjustments were a third straight weekly cut and the largest since July 11, when they lowered gasoline and diesel prices by NT$1.2 and NT$1.3 respectively.
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said in a statement its price cut reflected a 6.33 percent decline in the company’s average crude oil costs to US$72.63 a barrel last week.
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said Europe’s debt crisis had triggered concerns over the outlook for the global economy and raised worries about demand for crude oil, leading to a sizable decline in oil prices last week.
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Anna Paulson on Thursday joined the chorus of policymakers saying additional interest-rate increases may be needed to ensure inflation returns to the central bank’s 2 percent goal. “Looking ahead, if conditions evolve as I expect, some modest further tightening may be warranted,” Paulson said on Thursday at an event in Philadelphia. Earlier on Thursday, New York Fed President John Williams said he and his colleagues “still have a lot of work to do” in dealing with lingering inflation risks. Several other officials have aired similar comments, in line with the signal given last week when policymakers voted
COURSE CHANGE: The shift comes amid pressure from chipmakers for stable, low-carbon electricity. Officials said Ma-anshan could be restarted as early as 2028 Taiwan has approved a preliminary plan to restart an idled atomic power plant, marking a reversal of the ruling party’s anti-nuclear stance as the nation pursues greater energy security. The Nuclear Safety Commission has cleared its review of an initial proposal to restart the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant, it said in a statement on Thursday. Taiwan Power Co (台電) will still need to carry out follow-up work including safety inspections, before submitting another report on implementation for review, the commission said. The earliest the plant could resume operations is 2028, according to previous reports in local media, citing Minister of Economic Affairs
GlobalFoundries Inc yesterday said it plans to accelerate global capacity optimization and expansion to accommodate exponential growth in radio frequency (RF) and other chips driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. Singapore will pay a vital role in the company’s capacity expansion, alongside production line optimizations across its manufacturing sites, GlobalFoundries Asia Pacific head Vincent Feng (范曾文) told a news conference in Hsinchu City. “Many might be surprised to hear that the RF market is thriving now. We are gearing up for a massive capacity expansion, and it is all being driven by AI,” Feng said. He declined to disclose details of the
MORE DATA CENTERS: Microsoft’s Taiwan-area general manager said the corporation is looking to add two more data centers in northern Taiwan over the next few years Microsoft Corp plans to double its data centers in Taiwan from two facilities to four, Microsoft Taiwan general manager Sean Pien (卞志祥) said yesterday. “Over the past two to three years, we have consistently seen demand outstrip supply, and we expect that situation to continue over the next two to three years,” Pien said on the sidelines of a news conference in Taipei. The data center sites would mainly be in northern Taiwan to meet customer demand and reduce the risk of operational disruptions caused by a single event, he said, without saying their exact locations. Microsoft enabled the first phase of