The Ministry of Economic Affairs announced yesterday that state-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) would again cut domestic gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.4 per liter, effective today — its second price cut in two days.
Under the revised prices, 98-unleaded gasoline at CPC gas stations will fall to NT$30.8 per liter, 95-unleaded gasoline to NT$29.3 and 92-unleaded to NT$28.6. Premium diesel will drop to NT$26.1 per liter.
The decision, which followed a NT$0.1 cut announced on Monday, was reportedly reached yesterday afternoon at a closed-door meeting held at the Executive Yuan attended by Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義).
The new price cut follows public criticism after a report in the media on Monday that CPC and rival Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) overcharged motorists while collecting revenue for air pollution fees payable to the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA). The report accused the two oil refiners of overcharging motorists by billions of NT dollars over the last few years.
The second reduction came after the ministry conducted a full review of the company’s collection of various fees and taxes from motorists at the pump, including air pollution fees, land pollution fees, sales taxes, commodity taxes and petroleum management funds.
Following the review, the ministry found there were discrepancies — particularly on air pollution fees and petroleum funds — between the amount CPC submitted to government agencies and those it charged motorists, the ministry said in a statement yesterday.
CPC representatives said last night that the price drop was to ensure customers did not feel cheated over the collected fees, which according to the latest company figures, amounted to NT$5.5 billion (US$171 million).
Between October 2006 and December last year, CPC had overcharged a combined NT$5.44 billion — NT$2.49 billion on air pollution fees and NT$2.94 billion on petroleum funds -— which translate into discrepancies of around NT$0.2 per liter on fuel oil collected for air pollution fees and NT$0.25 per liter for the petroleum fund, the ministry said.
“Taking consumers’ interests into consideration, [we] will return the discrepancies to consumers,” the ministry said. “Moreover, [the government] will review the various tax fees collected for the prior fiscal year every January and will take into account the review results in the calculation of floating prices for fuel.”
CPC president Chu Shao-hua (朱少華) last night admitted that since October 2006, the company had collected much more than it was required to remit to the agency.
“The previous drop of NT$0.1, coupled with today’s drop of NT$0.4, will continue till next January,” Chu said. “Within 12 months ... we will have returned the full amount back to consumers.”
Formosa Petrochemical Corp, which announced a price cut of NT$0.2 per liter on Monday, did not follow its bigger rival in cutting prices again last night. The company said it was analyzing the situation before deciding on any action.
Earlier yesterday Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Minister Stephen Shen (沈世宏) tried to dispel growing anger over the accusations of overcharging.
“It’s a case of mistaken accounting,” Shen said yesterday. “We received every dollar we were owed ... how they collect that amount is between [the companies] and their customers.”
RSS