Fuel prices unchanged for sixth week despite oil rise

Despite a rise in international crude oil prices last week, state-owned oil supplier CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) announced on Saturday that it would keep its domestic gasoline and diesel prices steady this week to tame inflationary pressure.

Formosa Petrochemical Corp’s (台塑石化) Web site yesterday showed no change in the company’s fuel prices this week.

It would be the sixth consecutive week that CPC and Formosa have maintained their domestic fuel prices at the same levels.

The companies’ decisions came despite Brent futures, the global benchmark, hitting a high since late April on Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia, which raised concerns over oil supply disruptions.

Front-month Brent crude oil futures last week gained 6.24 percent to settle at US$116.72 per barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange in London, while West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures — the US oil benchmark — increased 4.29 percent to US$103.27 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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 rose to US$114.83 per barrel last week from US$113.77 per barrel the previous week.

A weaker New Taiwan dollar, which averaged NT$32.515 against the US dollar last week, compared with NT$32.131 the previous week, added a financial burden to CPC in terms of overseas crude oil purchases.

This week, retail gasoline prices are to remain at NT$31.2, NT$32.7 and NT$34.7 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively at CPC and Formosa stations, while prices of premium diesel would stay at NT$29.9 per liter at CPC stations and NT$29.7 per liter at Formosa pumps, the companies said.