State-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday announced a rise in this month’s wholesale prices for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG), adding more upward pressure on consumer prices, which have seen a more than 5 percent increase in several basic commodities because of higher raw material costs.
The latest price increases came after CPC and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) this week raised domestic gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.3 per liter to their highest levels in seven months.
Effective today, prices for household LPG will rise by NT$2 per kilogram, NT$1.1 per liter for LPG used in cars and NT$0.5 per cubic meter for household LNG, CPC announced on its Web site.
As a result, the new price for household LPG is NT$31.56 per kilogram, while the price for a 20kg household gas cylinder will increase by NT$40, CPC said.
Prices for LPG used in cars will be between NT$22.8 and NT$33.75 depending on category.
Motorists who drive 1,000km per month will see an increase of NT$110 in fuel charges each month, based on an industry average of 1 liter of LPG used for every 10km traveled.
CPC said that the international LPG benchmark price — the Saudi Aramco Contract Price — reached a record level of US$1,205 per tonne this month, up 17.6 percent from the previous month, adding that this was the main factor behind its decision to increase domestic LPG prices by 6.8 percent this month.
As for household LNG prices, the refiner said it would hike gas prices by an average of 2.99 percent, adding that an average consumption of 30 to 45 cubic meters per month would mean an additional expense of NT$15 to NT$22.5 for each household.
The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics is scheduled to release last month’s consumer price index (CPI) on Monday. Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires said CPI would rise at a slower pace of 1.39 percent year-on-year following January’s 2.37 percent increase, citing a decline in vegetable prices.
However, the Consumers’ Foundation said in a report yesterday that rising raw material costs have prompted makers and sellers of some basic commodities such as flour, eggs, cooking oil, instant noodles and shampoo to raise prices by between 5 percent and 30 percent over the past two years, urging the government to pay more attention to the impact of rising prices on the general public.
Under the non-profit foundation’s survey of price rises among these basic commodities between January 2010 and December last year, the price of instant noodles has risen by an average of 15.83 percent.
That was followed by an increase of 8.44 percent in egg prices, 6.33 percent in flour prices, 6.08 percent in cooking oil prices and 5.89 percent in shampoo prices over the period, the report said.
The report also showed that domestic fuel prices have risen by 4.22 percent in the past two years, while those of milk powder products were 3.47 percent higher over the period in spite of the government’s three tariff cuts on imported milk powder products.
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