Domestic gasoline and diesel prices this week are to remain unchanged for a second consecutive week, as the nation’s two major refiners absorb cost changes to comply with a government policy of keeping consumer prices stable during the holiday season.
Gasoline prices at state-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and privately owned Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) stations are to remain at NT$29.6, NT$31.1 and NT$33.1 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said.
The price of premium diesel fuel is to stay at NT$28.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$28 at Formosa pumps, they added.
The companies’ moves were against market trends, as global crude oil prices were down for the second straight week last week. Front-month US West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures fell 2.85 percent last week to US$72.53 a barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent decreased 2.22 percent to US$76.76 per barrel at London’s ICE Stock Exchange.
Separately, prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) products, including household and automotive LPG, propane and butane, as well as propane and butane mixes, would remain unchanged this month, CPC said.
Liquefied natural gas prices for retail users would also stay the same this month, but prices for industrial users would rise 3 percent from last month, it added.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of
SUBSIDIES: The nominee for commerce secretary indicated the Trump administration wants to put its stamp on the plan, but not unravel it entirely US President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency in charge of a US$52 billion semiconductor subsidy program declined to give it unqualified support, raising questions about the disbursement of funds to companies like Intel Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電). “I can’t say that I can honor something I haven’t read,” Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, said of the binding CHIPS and Science Act awards in a confirmation hearing on Wednesday. “To the extent monies have been disbursed, I would commit to rigorously enforcing documents that have been signed by those companies to make sure we get