I’ve been in Taiwan a while, and have forgotten about how much gas is in other countries. I never really paid attention to how much it is here either, just that a refill for my 150 Kymco was about NT200. There was an increase of 1NT in the price just recently. So, here are the new prices. Just so you know, the petrol industry is state run and gasoline prices are said to be undervalued in Taiwan, with the government eating billions of NT dollars a year to keep the price down. The average price of fuel as of today in the USA is US $2.962/gallon.

The new price scedule as of 10pm, July 7th, 2006

These prices were taken from a recent Taipei Times article

98-octane - NT$30.1/liter
95-octane - NT$28.6/liter
92-octane - NT$27.9/liter

which translates to:

98-octane - NT$113.94/gallon
95-octane - NT$108.26/gallon
92-octane - NT$105.61/gallon

Now to see that in US dollars

NT1 = 0.0308718 $US 9 (as of 7/8/2006 from the XE Currency converter website)

98-octane - US $3.52/gallon
95-octane - US $3.34/gallon
92-octane - US $3.26/gallon

If the price of gasoline is undervalued here, then what is happening in the US? It’s amazing how much the prices of gasoline has increased in just the last 5 years. I remember getting gas for US $1.30/gallon in 2001. It has doubled since then and then some. There is alot that could be written about this, the why’s, the who’s the where’s etc. This is meant to be a quick glance into the issue. If you care to enlighten anyone as to the current state of the oil industry, feel free to leave a comment.