Fuel prices unchanged for ninth consecutive week

State-owned oil supplier CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) on Saturday said it would leave its domestic gasoline and diesel prices unchanged this week.

Private refiner Formosa Petrochemical Corp’s (台塑石化) Web site also showed no changes in its gasoline and diesel prices this week.

It would be the ninth consecutive week that CPC and Formosa have maintained their domestic fuel prices at the same level.

Their decisions came as international crude oil prices continued to stay at high levels, although fuel prices moved lower last week in the wake of a global supply surplus.

The global oil market is expected to return to a surplus in the final quarter of this year for the first time since the beginning of the Middle East war, as a recovery in exports in the region outpaces demand, the International Energy Agency said on Friday.

Front-month Brent crude oil futures — a global benchmark — last week fell 2.52 percent to settle at US$95.84 per barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange in London, while West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures — the US oil benchmark — fell 2.5 percent to US$88.56 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Under CPC’s 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 fell to US$90.61 per barrel last week from US$99.79 per barrel the previous week, the company said.

Retail gasoline prices 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.