The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus said yesterday it would propose an amendment to the Petroleum Management Law (石油管理法) to restrict and impose taxes on oil product exports.
DPP Legislator Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) told a press conference that while CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油, CPC) made profits of just NT$15.4 billion (US$510 million) last year, Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) made NT$78.5 billion. In the first quarter of this year Formosa has enjoyed a surplus of NT$13 billion, while CPC has incurred losses of more than NT$20 billion.
Wong said she suspected Formosa had profited from exporting oil products.
DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said statistics showed that while Formosa has exported 63 percent of the petroleum it refines, CPC has only exported 21 percent. Formosa exported 84 percent of the diesel oil it refined, while CPC exported just 29 percent.
Wong said the proposed amendment would restrict oil companies from exporting oil products.
She said the amendment also imposes export taxes on oil products.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus expressed support.
KMT caucus deputy secretary-general Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) said: “We agree to this proposal. After all, Taiwan does not produce oil, but has to rely on imports for all crude oil and gasoline products.”
Additional reporting by Flora Wang
Fast food chain McDonald's is to raise prices by up to NT$5 on some products at its restaurants across Taiwan, starting on Wednesday next week, the company announced today. The prices of all extra value meals and sharing boxes are to increase by NT$5, while breakfast combos and creamy corn soup would go up by NT$3, the company said in a statement. The price of the main items of those meals, if ordered individually, would remain the same. Meanwhile, the price of a medium-sized lemon iced tea and hot cappuccino would rise by NT$3, extra dipping sauces for chicken nuggets would go up
Yangmingshan National Park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) nature area has gone viral after a park livestream camera observed a couple in the throes of intimate congress, which was broadcast live on YouTube, drawing large late-night crowds and sparking a backlash over noise, bright lights and disruption to wildlife habitat. The area’s livestream footage appeared to show a couple engaging in sexual activity on a picnic table in the park on Friday last week, with the uncensored footage streamed publicly online. The footage quickly spread across social media, prompting a tide of visitors to travel to the site to “check in” and recreate the
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not
GROUNDED: A KMT lawmaker proposed eliminating drone development programs and freezing funding for counterdrone systems, despite China’s adoption of the technology China has deployed attack drones at air bases near the Taiwan Strait in a strategy aimed at overwhelming Taiwan’s air defense systems through saturation attacks, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. The council’s latest quarterly report on China said that satellite imagery and open-source intelligence indicate that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had converted retired J-6 fighter jets into J-6W drones, which the PLA has stationed at six air bases near Taiwan, five in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province. The report cited J. Michael Dahm, a senior fellow at the US-based Mitchell Institute, as saying that China has
RSS