Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic fuel stations are this week to rise NT$0.2 and NT$0.3 per liter respectively, after international crude oil prices increased last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday.
International crude oil prices last week snapped a two-week losing streak as the geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine turned increasingly tense, CPC said in a statement.
News that some oil production facilities in Alberta, Canada, were shut down due to wildfires and that US-Iran nuclear talks made no progress also helped push oil prices to a significant weekly gain, Formosa said in a separate statement.
Front-month Brent crude oil futures — the international oil benchmark — last week rose 5.88 percent to settle at US$66.47 per barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange, while West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures — the US oil gauge — gained 6.23 percent to US$64.58 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to increase to NT$26.6, NT$28.1 and NT$30.1 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, while premium diesel is to cost NT$25.1 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.9 at Formosa pumps, the companies said.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
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