CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) yesterday said that gasoline prices this week would rise by NT$0.8 per liter and diesel prices by NT$0.9, after hikes of NT$0.4 and NT$0.3 respectively last week.
Effective today, prices at CPC stations are to rise to NT$29.5, NT$31 and NT$33 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, while the price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.6 per liter, CPC said.
CPC’s price of NT$31.0 for 95-octane unleaded gasoline marks the highest in nearly three years.
Prices at Formosa stations are to rise to NT$29.5, NT$30.9 and NT$33.0 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, while premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.4 per liter.
State-run CPC said that based on its floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil last week increased 3.04 percent from a week earlier, as global oil prices rose due to a surge in energy demand.
“Countries are rushing to buy coal and natural gas, leading prices of related energy sources to soar in the short term, while rapidly driving demand for crude oil,” CPC said in a statement.
“In addition, OPEC and its allies are maintaining a moderate production increase for next month rather than producing extra output, which also drove oil prices to rise.”
Based on the formula, gasoline and diesel prices should rise by NT$2.0 and NT$3.2 per liter respectively, but CPC said it would absorb the cost of the increase in compliance with government policy.
Separately, Formosa said that demand for heating fuels increased as the northern hemisphere approaches winter, and that power shortages in China and India pushed up prices of natural gas and coal, which all led crude oil prices to further rise last week.
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
RSS