CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said it plans to allocate more than NT$200 billion (US$6.44 billion) for capital expenditure over the next six years to expand its natural gas business.
“The capital spending would mainly be used for establishing the company’s third liquefied natural gas terminal and constructing natural gas infrastructure in the nation,” CPC chairman Derek Chen (陳金德) told a news conference in Taipei.
The state-run oil refiner plans to spend NT$60.8 billion on a new terminal in Taoyuan for storing natural gas, which is scheduled to start operations before 2023 with an estimated annual capacity of 3 million tonnes.
Photo: Huang Pei-chun, Taipei Times
“The [terminal] plan follows the government’s long-term goal of a nuclear-free homeland, and we expect the terminal to meet demand for natural gas in northern Taiwan,” Chen said.
The plan would require the approval of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Executive Yuan, company officials said.
On Thursday last week, Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), the nation’s main utility, said it was working on a project to build natural gas storage facilities at two coal-fired power plants in Taichung and Keelung, which are expected to be completed by 2025 when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government’s nuclear-free homeland policy is scheduled to take effect.
In an effort to ensure a stable supply of energy, CPC is also planning to improve its infrastructure, including enlarging its natural gas plant in Taichung and building several onshore natural gas pipelines nearby, Chen said.
“The new infrastructure in Taichung is expected to lend support to the Tongxiao natural gas power plant in Miaoli County, which is operated by Taipower,” Chen said.
CPC will also allocate NT$38.4 billion for the renewal of facilities at its Taoyuan refinery to help produce higher=-quality products and reduce air pollution.
However, the renewal plan has been suspended since 2006, as area residents are concerned about potential pollution and want CPC to relocate the refinery, a CPC official said.
The official, who declined to be named, said that the company hopes to obtain the development permit by the end of this year, without giving a detailed timetable.
CPC yesterday also announced land reclamation plans for a new storage center at Kaohsiung Port (高雄港), which would cost nearly NT$53.6 billion.
It said it plans to integrate more than 300 existing storage tanks and pipelines in the new center to improve transportation efficiency.
The storage center is scheduled to start operations before 2024, it said.
The company is also looking for a partner for a joint venture to manufacture styrene and isononyl alcohol, in response to the government’s push for a circular economy, CPC said.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
RSS