State-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday announced that it would raise its gasoline and diesel product prices by NT$0.60 per liter this week, effective today.
This is the second week in a row that the refiner decided to increase domestic fuel prices to reflect rising global crude oil prices.
CPC said in a statement that its average oil costs grew by 6.23 percent last week from the previous week, after global crude oil prices rose on market speculation that major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia and Russia might cut output to curb falling prices, despite an appreciation of NT$0.023 in the New Taiwan dollar against the US currency during the week.
The company’s weighted oil price formula — 70 percent Dubai crude and 30 percent Brent crude — showed prices increased US$2.24 per barrel to US$30.73 last week from US$28.49 the previous week, CPC said.
With the adjustment, CPC’s wholesale price of 92-octane unleaded gasoline will increase to NT$19.9 per liter, while that of 95-octane unleaded gasoline will be NT$21.4 per liter and 98-octane unleaded will be NT$23.4 per liter.
The price of premium diesel will rise to NT$17.1 per liter, CPC said.
CPC’s announcement came a day after Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said it would raise its wholesale gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.6 per liter, effective today, with the scale of retail price hike subject to local pump stations.
“With the global market still swamped by an oversupply of crude oil, especially with the potential supplies from Iran this year, we could still see global oil prices continuously hover around the low levels in the near term,” CPC president Paul Chen (陳綠蔚) told the Central News Agency yesterday.
According to CPC data, the NT$21.4 per liter for CPC’s 95-octane unleaded gasoline is still NT$4.1, or 16 percent, less than the NT$25.5 the refiner charged per liter a year earlier.
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