CPC freezes fuel prices for fifth straight week

Taipei, Oct. 17 (CNA) State-owned oil supplier CPC Corp., Taiwan, said Saturday it will keep domestic gasoline and diesel prices unchanged next week to ease inflationary pressure, even as international crude prices remained high amid military tensions in the Middle East.

It will be the fifth consecutive week that CPC has held its fuel prices steady. Concerns over global oil supply disruptions continued to weigh on market sentiment, pushing Brent crude oil prices, the global benchmark, to their highest level since May at one point Friday.

In a statement, CPC said its recommended retail prices for 92-, 95- and 98-octane unleaded gasoline will remain at NT$31.2 (US$0.96), NT$32.7 and NT$34.7 per liter, respectively, from midnight Sunday through Oct. 25.

The recommended retail price of premium diesel will also remain at NT$29.9 per liter during the same period, the company said.

Under CPC's floating fuel price mechanism, which tracks a weighted average of 70 percent Dubai crude and 30 percent Brent crude, the average international crude oil price fell slightly from US$114.65 per barrel last week to US$113.77 per barrel this week, the company said.

However, a weaker Taiwan dollar, which averaged NT$32.131 against the U.S. dollar this week, compared with NT$31.810 last week, added financial pressure to CPC in terms of overseas crude oil purchases.

As a result of the decision to leave fuel prices unchanged, CPC said it expects to absorb losses of NT$6.9 per liter on gasoline sales and NT$8.8 per liter on diesel sales next week.

CPC estimated that by Sunday it will have absorbed a total of NT$28.99 billion in losses since tensions in the Middle East broke out at the end of February, as it has not fully passed higher crude oil costs on to consumers and businesses under the government's price stabilization measures.