State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said that it had confirmed on Saturday night with its liquefied natural gas (LNG) and crude oil suppliers that shipments are proceeding as scheduled and that domestic supplies remain unaffected.
The CPC yesterday announced the gasoline and diesel prices will rise by NT$0.2 and NT$0.4 per liter, respectively, starting Monday, citing Middle East tensions and blizzards in the eastern United States.
CPC also iterated it has been reducing the proportion of crude oil imports from the Middle East and diversifying its supply sources in the past few years in response to geopolitical risks, expanding purchases from the Americas, Europe, Africa and Australia.
Photo: EPA
Last year, crude oil from the Middle East accounted for 34.9 percent of Taiwan’s total imports, down from 45 percent in 2022, while imports from the US rose to 61.8 percent from 44 percent during the same period, CPC said.
The company added that about 30 percent of its LNG purchases in 2024 and last year came from Qatar, another 30 percent from Australia and about 10 percent from the US.
CPC said it aims to gradually reduce LNG imports from Gulf countries and increase those from the US, with US imports expected to account for about 25 percent of the total by 2029.
The state-owned company said it would continue to monitor developments in the Middle East and work with the government to help stabilize commodity prices.
Meanwhile, global brent crude jumped 10 percent to about US$80 a barrel over the counter yesterday, oil traders said, while analysts predicted that prices could climb as high as US$100 after US and Israeli strikes on Iran plunged the Middle East into a new war.
“While the military attacks are themselves supportive for oil prices, the key factor here is the closing of the Strait of Hormuz,” said Ajay Parmar, director of energy and refining at ICIS.
Most tanker owners, oil majors and trading houses have suspended crude oil, fuel and liquefied natural gas shipments via the Strait of Hormuz, trade sources said, after Tehran warned ships against moving through the waterway.
More than 20 percent of global oil is moved through the Strait of Hormuz.
“We expect prices to open [from today] much closer to US$100 a barrel and perhaps exceed that level if we see a prolonged outage of the Strait,” Parmar said.
Middle East leaders have told Washington that a war on Iran could lead to oil prices jumping to more than US$100 a barrel, said RBC analyst Helima Croft.
Barclays analysts also said prices could hit US$100.
The OPEC+ group of oil producers yesterday agreed to raise output by 206,000 barrels per day (bpd) from next month, a modest increase representing less than 0.2 percent of global demand.
While some alternate infrastructure could be used to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, the net impact from its closure would be a loss of 8 million to 10 million bpd of crude oil supply even after diverting some flows through Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline and Abu Dhabi pipeline, said Rystad energy economist Jorge Leon.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
RSS