The nation’s two major refiners yesterday announced that they would raise gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.2 per liter from today, ending five weeks of price cuts.
Following the adjustments, domestic gasoline prices at CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) stations are to rise to NT$28.8, NT$30.3 and NT$32.3 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively.
Premium diesel would cost NT$27.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$27 at Formosa pumps.
The increases come even as international crude oil prices fell last week compared with the previous week, CPC and Formosa said in separate statements.
Front-month US West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures edged up 0.33 percent to US$69.49 per barrel on Friday, but declined 3.19 percent in the week, while Brent crude oil futures rose 0.4 percent to US$73.1 per barrel on Friday, falling 3.35 percent for the week, Dow Jones Newswires reported on Saturday.
The global oil market experienced a volatile week of trading last week, with crude prices falling earlier last week, as the Israeli military’s recent airstrikes on Iran avoided Iranian oil facilities, CPC and Formosa said.
However, it rose later in the week amid market speculation that OPEC+ could delay next month’s planned oil production increase by a month or more.
However, this week’s average price levels are still lower than the previous week’s, they said.
Separately, prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) products, including household and automotive LPG, propane and butane, as well as propane and butane mixes, would remain unchanged this month, CPC said.
Liquefied natural gas prices for retail users would also stay the same this month, although prices for industrial users would rise 3 percent from last month, it added.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
Zimbabwe’s ban on raw lithium exports is forcing Chinese miners to rethink their strategy, speeding up plans to process the metal locally instead of shipping it to China’s vast rechargeable battery industry. The country is Africa’s largest lithium producer and has one of the world’s largest reserves, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Zimbabwe already banned the export of lithium ore in 2022 and last year announced it would halt exports of lithium concentrates from January next year. However, on Wednesday it imposed the ban with immediate effect, leaving unclear what the lithium mining sector would do in the