Hong Kong-listed Mayer Holdings Ltd (美亞控股), 34.72 percent owned by Taiwan’s Mayer Steel Pipe Corp (美亞鋼管), said yesterday that one of its oil wells in the Argentine province of Mendoza began production on Nov. 30.
In a filing issued to the Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing, Mayer Holdings said that the CH-1053 oil well, which has been drilled to a depth of 3,600m, has started to produce 900 to 1,000 barrels of oil per day as of Nov. 30.
The production is substantially higher than the firm’s CH-1052 oil well, which has a capacity of 370 to 440 barrels of oil per day, the company said in the statement.
Mayer Holdings’ update of its oil projects in Argentina came a day after the company announced on Wednesday that it would pay HK$1.26 billion (US$163,000) to acquire Maxipetrol HK, which produces oil in Puesto Pozo Cercado and Chanares Herrados in Mendoza.
The joint investment with Hong Kong’s EPI (Holdings) Ltd (長盈集團控股) would allow Mayer Holdings to secure around a 20 percent stake in the refinery and export facility at the Mendoza project.
The stake purchase from Maxipetrol HK has gained approval from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and Mayer Holdings expects to close the deal sometime in the first half of next year.
Based on the company’s data, Maxipetrol HK has already drilled four wells in the 210m² oil field in Mendoza.
The gross crude oil output of the oil field is estimated at around 146.9 million barrels, Mayer Holdings said.
To finance this investment, Mayer Holdings is planning to issue HK$400 million in three-year notes, HK$600 million in five-year notes and HK$264 million in eight-year notes, the company said.
Mayer Holdings said in yesterday’s statement that the CH-25 well, which has a depth of 4,685m and is located in the Potrerillos Formation, is expected to produce oil as scheduled, while the CH-1055 well has reached a depth of more than 2,500m and is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
The company also said the drilling of the CH-7 deep well will commence this month in accordance with the investment plan announced earlier this year.
Shares of Mayer Holdings dropped 8.2 percent yesterday to HK$0.78 in Hong Kong trading, while parent Mayer Steel Pipe — which yesterday reported a decline of 25.3 percent in revenues in the first 11 months to NT$5.64 billion (US$175 million) — fell limit-down to NT$25.6 in Taipei trading.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day