State-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said it would cut gasoline prices by NT$0.1 per liter, with diesel prices remaining unchanged, as global crude oil prices fell slightly last week.
On Monday last week, the company raised gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.1 per liter, bringing to an end the declining trend recorded in the previous 19 consecutive weeks.
“International crude oil prices declined during the past week on the impact of various negative announcements, including the decline of orders for durable goods in the US, and the increase in US commercial crude oil reserves,” CPC said in a statement yesterday.
However, according to the weighted oil pricing formula adopted by CPC, prices still rose to US$45.28 per barrel last week, up US$0.12, or 0.27 percent, from the level of US$45.16 per barrel in the previous week.
After factoring in the New Taiwan dollar’s appreciation of almost NT$0.14 against the US dollar, the company is to lower gasoline prices by 0.14 percent, with diesel prices keeping flat, the statement added.
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said in a separate statement that it would also cut gasoline prices by NT$0.1, with diesel prices remaining unchanged.
The nation’s only privately run oil refiner said its move reflects global oil market sentiment and local market competition, but Formosa always follows CPC’s pricing adjustments, making the market a virtual monopoly.
Meanwhile, CPC yesterday said it would cut prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) products, but raise those for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) items this month.
Effective today, CPC cut the price per cubic meter of LNG by 8.33 percent on average from last month, saying that an average consumption of between 30m3 and 45m3 per month would mean savings of between NT$35.4 and NT$53.1 for each household, the company said.
Prices for household LPG are to rise by NT$0.8 per kilogram and by NT$0.4 per liter for LPG used in cars, CPC said.
As a result, the price of a 20kg household gas cylinder would increase by NT$16, the company said.
Additional reporting by Kevin
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
RSS