Exxon Mobil eyes ethylene plant
Exxon Mobil Corp may invest in an ethylene factory that the state-owned Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中油) plans to build to supply growing markets in northeast Asia, a CPC official said.
Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, "expressed an interest" in helping build the plant, which would be the center of a chemical complex in the center or south of the country, said Liao Tsang-long (廖滄龍), a CPC spokesman.
The factory would be capable of producing an annual 2.6 million tonnes of ethylene, which is used to make plastics and chemicals.
"They contacted us and took materials related to the project back with them, saying they would like to study the prospects of investing in it," Liao said.
A. J. Leow, an Exxon Mobil spokesman, declined to comment on the plant project.
Exxon has already agreed to build a 600,000 ton-a-year ethylene factory in Fujian Province and to operate about 700 gasoline stations with China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (中國石化), or Sino-pec, Asia's largest oil refiner.
Sun Media links up with Jet TV
Sun Media Group Holdings Ltd (陽光衛視), the No. 2 Hong Kong-based broadcaster into China, has formed a venture with Taiwan's Eastern Broadcasting Co (東森) and its Jet TV unit to make television programs for the Chinese market.
The new company, Sun Entertainment Television Ltd, will help Sun Media create "a profitable satellite-TV business model for the Chinese market," Bruno Wu (吳征), Sun Media's chief executive officer, said in a statement released yesterday.
Advertising revenue will increase "substantially," he said in the statement, without providing details.
Sun Media will own 40 percent of the new venture and will contribute existing programming rather than cash, according to a public relations firm representing the company.
TSMC plans higher factory use
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufac-turing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said it expects its first-quarter factory use to be "a few percentage points" better than the 60 percent it forecast in January.
TSMC said a slump in business that started in the latter half of 2001 will hit bottom in the first three months of this year.
The company's second-quarter results will improve from the first, the company said in a statement.
Company spokesman Tzeng Jinnhaw (曾晉皓) declined to define "results."
The company yesterday reported that sales in February rose 7.6 percent from a year earlier to NT$12.3 billion (US$355 million).
Quanta sales jump 75 percent
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), the nation's biggest notebook-computer maker, said sales last month rose 75 percent to NT$17.5 billion (US$505 million) from a year earlier.
Sales increased from NT$17.2 billion in January, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Meanwhile, Quanta Display Inc (廣明電子), a flat-panel display venture owned by Quanta Computer and Japan's Sharp Corp, said it plans to raise NT$4.5 billion selling new shares to help fund a new plant.
The company plans to sell 410 million shares at NT$11 apiece, it said in a statement to the stock exchange.
The price is an 8.7 percent discount to the NT$12.05 closing price of the stock yesterday.
NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.028 to close at NT$34.640 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$397 million.
Agencies
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