Staff writer, with CNA
CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) on Saturday announced that it would leave domestic gasoline and diesel prices unchanged this week, despite international crude oil prices continuing to rise amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East.Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) also decided to maintain prices from last week, information posted yesterday on the company’s Web site showed.It would be the eighth consecutive week that the two companies maintained domestic gasoline and diesel prices at the same levels to keep a lid on inflation and to comply with a government pricing mechanism, while also considering the fuel prices and subsidies of neighboring markets.
Effective today, retail gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations remain at NT$32.4, NT$33.9 and NT$35.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said.Prices for premium diesel are to stay at NT$31 per liter at CPC stations and NT$30.8 per liter at Formosa pumps, they said.
At those prices, CPC said it would lose NT$3.6 per liter on its gasoline sales and NT$5.4 per liter on its diesel sales this week.Under CPC’s floating price mechanism, which is based on a weighting of 70 percent Dubai crude and 30 percent Brent crude, the company estimated it would have absorbed NT$15.67 billion (US$496.4 million) in losses as of yesterday.
