Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha, Japan's largest shipowner, and Mitsui & Co won a 25-year contract to transport liquefied natural gas from Qatar for Taiwan's Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC,
Only three of seven bidders for the contract met CPC's requirements, Lin Cheng-hsiung (
The agreement may be worth NT$86.9 billion (US$2.7 billion), according to the tender document.
Taiwan aims to double natural gas consumption to 16 million tonnes a year by 2020 to reduce pollution from burning coal and oil. More than 90 percent of the nation's natural gas is imported as LNG. Companies from Japan, the world's biggest LNG buyer, dominate Asian trading of the fuel. Nippon Yusen operates 36 LNG carriers.
"The Japanese won because they are quite experienced in shipbuilding, transportation and working with Qatar," Lin said in an interview.
Nippon Yusen shares rose 1.4 percent to close at ?749 (US$6.58) at 3pm in Tokyo, after declining earlier by as much as 1 percent.
Shares in Tokyo-based Mitsui & Co, Japan's second-biggest trading firm, gained 2.4 percent to ?1,650.
Bidders excluded from the final three were AP Moeller-Maersk A/S, MISC Bhd, Teekay Shipping Corp, and Golar LNG Ltd.
CPC plans to jointly set up two companies with the successful bidder, Lin said June 1.
The first joint venture, in which Qatar Gas Transport Co will also take a stake, will acquire four LNG tankers, while the second will operate the vessels to transport fuel from Qatar, he said.
Qatar Gas Transport is the largest shipper of liquefied natural gas in the Middle East. LNG is gas that has been chilled to liquid form for transport by ship. Import terminals return the LNG to gas form so that it can be sent through pipelines to customers such as factories, power stations and households.
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
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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