A top-level delegation from Taiwan's Chinese Petroleum Corporation (CPC, (
"The two parties have begun discussions to finalize the sales and purchase agreement," Rasgas said in a statement after CPC chairman Kuo Ching-tsai (郭進財) met Qatari Finance Minister Youssef Kamal in Doha on Saturday.
The CPC visit to Rasgas facilities follows agreement for Rasgas to supply 3 million tonnes per year of LNG for 25 years starting in 2008.
A heads of agreement was sealed in March contingent on CPC winning the right to supply the Ta-Tan power plant, one of the largest combined cycle gas turbine plants in the world, which it did in July.
CPC, a fully integrated gas and oil company based in Taipei, is expected to import 5.5 million tonnes of LNG by the end of the year.
RasGas is owned by the state-controlled firm Qatar Petroleum, which holds 63 percent of the outfit, with US oil giant ExxonMobil holding 25 percent, and the remainder held by Japanese and South Korean companies.
Meanwhile a report published yesterday in Doha said the emirate was set to be the world's biggest exporter of LNG by 2010 with an annual output of 30 million tonnes.
Projected capital expenditure of US$25 billion would almost double Qatar's LNG production in the next seven years, said the report by the Kuwait-based Global Investment House.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last