Formosa Plastics Group (
The parent company may invest US$1.1 billion in Texas over the next five years to expand chemical production and build a power plant, plus as much as US$400 million in Taiwan to boost chemical output, said Lee Chih-tsuen (李志村), president of Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑), the group's oldest company.
Formosa Plastics Group is expanding as it seeks to gain market share from rivals, including Dow Chemical Co of the US and Germany's BASF AG. The company is betting US economic growth will prompt higher demand for chemicals used in construction, computers and consumer products including handbags,shoes and diapers.
"Demand for petrochemicals usually moves in tandem with the gross domestic product," Lee, 70, said in an interview at his office in Taipei on Thursday. Formosa Plastics is expanding in the US, because "market demand is there.''
The US economy will grow by 3.4 percent this year, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 72 economists.
The parent company plans to build a 163,293 tonnes-a-year polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, plant in Texas, and a 300-megawatt power plant that will burn petroleum coke, a cheaper alternative to natural gas, Lee said.
The group will also expand ethylene production capacity in the US, he said. Ethylene is a basic chemical used in most plastics.
Formosa Plastics' plants at Point Comfort, Texas, account for 4.4 percent of North American ethylene capacity. The group also has natural gas assets and makes PVC among other chemicals in the US.
In Taiwan, Formosa Plastics is seeking government approval to spend between US$300 million and US$400 million in the next three to four years on plants making acrylic esters and super-absorbent polymers, according to Lee.
Acrylic esters' applications include paint and adhesives, while super-absorbent polymers are used in products like diapers.
The Taiwan plan will add to the group's NT$652.8 billion(US$20.4 billion) petrochemical venture in Mailiao, where Formosa Plastics already has plants capable of producing 1.7 million metric tons of ethylene a year and processing 480,000 barrels of crude oil a day.
Formosa Plastics will boost the capacity of its Mailiao refinery to 540,000 barrels a day before the end of the year, according to Lee. Construction of an ethylene plant that has an annual capacity of 1.09 million tonnes is also proceeding.
The parent company has been in talks with governments in Taiwan and China for a chemical project in eastern China's Ningbo city, Lee said. The proposal, including a 1.09 million tonnes-a-year ethylene plant, may cost between US$3 billion to US$5 billion.
"If the mainland doesn't build new plants, the shortage will continue to widen," Lee said. This has prompted Formosa Plastics to prod the Taiwanese government to allow the project.
China imports about 9.07 million tonnes of ethylene a year, he said.
China consumes about 14.5 million tonnes of ethylene a year and its demand for the feedstock increases by more than 907,000 tonnes every year, according to Lee.
The Taiwanese government bans companies from building ethylene plants in China, on the grounds such projects will siphon too much investment from the country, harming Taiwanese chemical producers.
Formosa Plastics has a plant in Ningbo to produce PVC, which is used to make window frames and floors among other plastic products. The company is test running an acrylic ester factory there and building factories that will make polypropylene and super-absorbent polymers, according to Lee.
Its affiliate Nan Ya Plastics has about 30 plants in China that make plastic pipes, synthetic leather and components for printed circuit boards.
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
Luxury fashion powerhouse Prada SpA has acknowledged the ancient Indian roots of its new sandal design after the debut of the open-toe footwear sparked a furor among Indian artisans and politicians thousands of miles from the catwalk in Italy. Images from Prada’s fashion show in Milan last weekend showed models wearing leather sandals with a braided design that resembled handmade Kolhapuri slippers with designs dating back to the 12th century. A wave of criticism in the media and from lawmakers followed over the Italian brand’s lack of public acknowledgement of the Indian sandal design, which is named after a city in the
INVESTOR RESILIENCE? An analyst said that despite near-term pressures, foreign investors tend to view NT dollar strength as a positive signal for valuation multiples Morgan Stanley has flagged a potential 10 percent revenue decline for Taiwan’s tech hardware sector this year, as a sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar begins to dent the earnings power of major exporters. In what appears to be the first such warning from a major foreign brokerage, the US investment bank said the currency’s strength — fueled by foreign capital inflows and expectations of US interest rate cuts — is compressing profit margins for manufacturers with heavy exposure to US dollar-denominated revenues. The local currency has surged about 10 percent against the greenback over the past quarter and yesterday breached
The US overtaking China as Taiwan’s top export destination could boost industrial development and wage growth, given the US is a high-income economy, an economist said yesterday. However, Taiwan still needs to diversify its export markets due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, said Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at National Central University. Taiwan’s exports soared to a record US$51.74 billion last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products and continued orders, with information and communication technology (ICT) and audio/video products leading all sectors. The US reclaimed its position as Taiwan’s top export market, accounting for