Gasoline prices are to drop NT$0.3 per liter this week due to a fall in global crude oil prices last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said in separate statements yesterday.
Crude oil prices fell last week after OPEC forecast a slight oversupply in the oil market for next quarter, the companies said.
Oil prices also dropped amid heightened fears of a global economic slowdown amid the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in the US and the financial crisis at Credit Suisse Group AG in Europe, they said.
Gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations today are to decrease to NT$28.9, NT$30.4 and NT$32.4 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said.
However, the price of premium diesel is to rise NT$0.5 per liter to NT$27.6 at CPC stations, and to NT$27.4 at Formosa pumps this week, after the companies factored in their oil price formulas, domestic market competition and global market trends, they said.
Separately, the government has secured liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies after the closing of a nuclear reactor increased the need for alternative power sources.
CPC, which supplies gas to Taiwan’s power utility, last week purchased through a tender a minimum of 10 LNG cargoes for delivery between May this year and March next year, traders with knowledge of the matter said.
The purchases are part of a larger strategy to secure LNG over the next year amid lower nuclear output, the traders said.
The Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant No. 2 reactor in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) retired last week upon reaching its service lifetime of 40 years.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
The London Metal Exchange (LME) discovered bags of stones instead of the nickel that underpinned a handful of its contracts at a warehouse in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in a revelation that would deliver another blow to confidence in the embattled exchange. The amount of metal represents just 0.14 percent of live nickel inventories on the LME, worth about US$1.3 million at current prices, so the immediate effect on the metals markets is limited. However, the shock announcement has much wider implications. In an industry riddled with scandals, the LME’s contracts are viewed as unquestionably safe. The news that even a few of
Oil on Friday posted its worst weekly loss since the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic as banking turmoil poisoned investor sentiment. West Texas Intermediate for April delivery dropped 2.36 percent to US$66.74 per barrel, falling 12.96 percent for the week, the largest drop in almost three years. Brent crude for May delivery fell 2.32 percent to US$72.97, posting a weekly loss of 11.85 percent. The failure of Silicon Valley Bank and troubles at Credit Suisse Group AG drove investors from risk assets, with oil-options covering accelerating the sell-off. “Crude action this week reminded many of how quickly the commodity can be decimated by
US-based mobile chip designer Qualcomm Inc yesterday opened a manufacturing engineering and testing center in Hsinchu, expanding its presence in Taiwan. Qualcomm also expects to accelerate its purchases in Taiwan, which already rose to NT$240 billion (US$7.9 billion) last year, up from NT$90 billion five years earlier, and should hit NT$300 billion next year. The center is to provide services for the supply chain in the semiconductor industry, Roawen Chen (陳若文), senior vice president and chief supply chain and operations officer of Qualcomm, said at the facility’s inauguration ceremony. It is Qualcomm’s largest and most advanced engineering testing center outside of the company’s
Huawei Technologies Co (華為) has replaced more than 13,000 parts in its products that were hit by US trade sanctions, the Chinese tech giant’s founder said, according to a speech transcript from last month posted on Friday by a Chinese university. Ren Zhengfei (任正非) said Huawei had over the past three years replaced the 13,000 components with domestic Chinese substitutes, and had redesigned 4,000 circuit boards for its products, the transcript posted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University said. “As of now, our circuit board [production] has stabilized, because we have a supply of domestically produced components,” Ren said. He did not give details