Gasoline and diesel prices are to rise NT$0.1 per liter this week as international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said in separate statements yesterday.
CPC attributed the rise in crude oil prices to market speculations that Saudi Arabia might extend daily oil production cuts through next month, while Formosa said a sharp drop in US crude oil inventories also weighed on the global oil market during the week.
Based on CPC’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil increased 1.07 percent from a week earlier, it said.
Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to increase to NT$31.2, NT$32.7 and NT$34.7 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said.
The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$29.3 at CPC stations and to NT$29.1 at Formosa pumps, they said.
CPC also said that despite an increase in the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) price on the international market, it would not change prices this month of any LPG products, including household and automotive LPG, propane and butane, as well as propane and butane mixes.
The company is also to keep liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices unchanged for retail and industrial users this month, but LNG prices for power generation users, such as Taiwan Power Co (台電), are to drop 1.4 percent, CPC said.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading