Taiwan CPC cancels gasoline offer because of Mideast tension

Taiwan's CPC Corp has cancelled a tender to sell gasoline this week as it decided against exporting the cargo at a time of ongoing tensions between the United States and Iran, an industry source familiar with the matter said.

CPC had offered 30,000 tonnes of gasoline for Feb. 6-21 lifting from Kaohsiung and was supposed to award the tender on Wednesday, the day where oil prices surged after the U.S. said its forces in Iraq were attacked by Iranian ballistic missiles.

The source said he was concerned that any cargo could be affected if there was a disruption in shipping.

Keeping the cargo in the domestic supply chain was also a preferred option given that Taiwan should stockpile ahead of its elections this week, the source added.

In June last year, a ship chartered by Ocean Energy on behalf of CPC to ship naphtha from United Arab Emirates (UAE) was attacked and damaged.

(Reporting by Seng Li Peng; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)