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.
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