No change to fuel prices for fourth week in a row

CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) said on Saturday that it would leave its gasoline and diesel prices unchanged this week, despite volatile international crude oil prices last week.

Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) matched CPC’s price adjustments for this week, information posted on the company’s Web site yesterday showed.

It would be the fourth consecutive week that CPC and Formosa have kept their domestic fuel prices unchanged, even though crude oil prices rose last week amid concerns over supply disruptions caused by military tensions in the Middle East.

CPC said under its floating fuel price mechanism, which tracks a weighted average of 70 percent Dubai crude and 30 percent Brent crude, the average international crude oil price rose to US$114.65 last week from US$112.54 per barrel the week before.

However, a stronger New Taiwan dollar, which averaged NT$31.810 against the US dollar last week, compared with NT$31.850 the week before, helped CPC lower its oil purchasing costs to some extent, the company’s data showed.

State-run CPC said it is leaving retail fuel prices unchanged in line with government price stabilization measures meant to ease inflationary pressure and keep fuel cheaper than in neighboring markets to improve Taiwan’s competitiveness.

Retail gasoline prices this week are to remain at NT$31.2, NT$32.7 and NT$34.7 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively at CPC and Formosa stations, while prices of premium diesel would stay at NT$29.9 per liter at CPC stations and NT$29.7 per liter at Formosa pumps, the companies said.