The nation’s two oil refiners yesterday said they would lower their prices for gasoline products for the second consecutive week after international crude oil prices fell last week due to a decline in demand prospects.
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and the privately owned Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) are to cut gasoline prices by NT$0.5 per liter, following a cut of NT$0.6 per liter last week, the companies said in separate statements.
Global crude oil prices have weakened this year over concerns about the global economic outlook and energy demand. Last week, China reported that its exports jumped last month, but imports fell well short of expectations, while the OPEC oil cartel again lowered its estimates for global oil demand growth this year and next, the companies said.
CPC said that based on its floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil fell 2.97 percent last week from a week earlier.
Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to decrease to NT$29.0, NT$30.5 and NT$32.5 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said.
Premium diesel would drop NT$0.6 to NT$27.6 per liter at CPC stations and cost NT$27.4 at Formosa pumps, they said.
Separately, CPC is expected to report losses for a fifth consecutive year this year as the company absorbs cost increases to comply with the government’s price stabilization policy and also because of a downturn in the global petrochemical industry caused by China’s overproduction, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister publication) reported yesterday.
CPC spent NT$21.94 billion (US$685.8 million) to absorb higher fuel costs in the first eight months of the year.
As the company’s pretax losses in the first eight months totaled more than NT$20 billion, it recently proposed to the Ministry of Economic Affairs that it adjust the cost absorption scheme, the newspaper said, citing company sources.
The ministry agreed with CPC and said it would formally report the firm’s proposal to the Executive Yuan for further discussion — only when a key inflationary measure falls below the central bank’s 2 percent target, the paper said.
Taiwan’s consumer price index last month rose 2.36 percent from a year earlier and climbed by an average of 2.32 percent in the first eight months, government data showed early this month.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).