CPC to leave domestic gasoline, diesel prices unchanged next week

Taipei, Oct. 3 (CNA) State-owned oil supplier CPC Corp., Taiwan, announced Saturday that it will keep its domestic gasoline and diesel prices steady next week as international crude oil prices still hovered at high levels.

It will be the third consecutive week that CPC has maintained its domestic fuel prices at the same level as part of the government's efforts to ease inflationary pressure.

In a statement, CPC said it would recommend retail prices stay unchanged at NT$31.2 (US$0.98), NT$32.7 and NT$34.7 per liter for 92-, 95- and 98-octane unleaded gasoline, respectively, from midnight Sunday through Oct. 11.

CPC added the recommended retail price of premium diesel will also remain at NT$29.9 per liter during the same period.

This week, international crude oil prices stayed volatile with Brent, the global benchmark, moving lower but the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) in the United States moving higher amid conflict in the Middle East.

CPC said its floating price mechanism, based on a weighted average of 70 percent Dubai and 30 percent Brent crude, showed that the average international crude oil price fell from US$115.33 per barrel last week to US$112.54 this week.

But, a weaker Taiwan dollar, which averaged NT$31.850 against the U.S. dollar this week, compared with NT$31.741 last week, raised purchasing costs for CPC to some extent.

Due to the decision to leave retail fuel prices steady, CPC said it expected to absorb a loss of NT$6.4 per liter on gasoline sales and NT$8.2 per liter on diesel sales next week.

CPC estimated that by Sunday it will have absorbed NT$25.34 billion in accumulated losses since the war in the Middle East broke out at the end of February by not fully passing on higher crude oil costs to consumers and businesses.