Taipei, July 11 (CNA) State-run oil supplier CPC Corp., Taiwan, said Saturday that it will maintain the current domestic gasoline and diesel prices next week despite a spike in international crude oil prices this week.
In a statement, CPC said it would recommend that retail prices remain at NT$29.8 (US$0.93), NT$31.3 and NT$33.3 per liter for 92, 95, and 98-octane unleaded gasoline, respectively, from midnight Monday through to July 19.
During that period, the recommended price for premium diesel will stay steady at NT$28.8 per liter, CPC said.
The decision marked the end of a three-week streak of falling CPC domestic fuel prices, which followed a drop in international crude oil prices in the previous three weeks.
Crude oil prices climbed again this week amid renewed concerns about the Middle East situation, as Iran and the United States launched new attacks and U.S. President Donald Trump said negotiations for a peace agreement were over.
International oil prices rose to an average US$69.89 per barrel this week, up from US$67.05 last week, according to CPC's floating price mechanism, which is based on a weighting of 70 percent Dubai crude and 30 percent Brent crude.
A weaker Taiwan dollar, which traded at NT$32.095 against the U.S. dollar this week compared with NT$31.879 last week, contributed to the higher crude oil prices, CPC data showed.
CPC's decision to hold domestic fuel prices steady next week, along with the Taiwan government's stabilization measures to keep domestic prices stable, is expected to ease inflationary pressure.
However, CPC said it will absorb losses of NT$3.7 per liter on sales of gasoline and NT$2.1 per liter on diesel.
Since the Iran-U.S. war broke out, CPC said, it had absorbed an estimated NT$16.07 billion in losses to date, mainly by keeping domestic fuel prices under the calculations that are based on crude prices.
(By Pan Tzu-yu and Frances Huang)
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