Australia’s Resourcehouse said yesterday it had secured a deal worth US$60 billion to supply coal to Chinese power stations over a 20-year period, calling it Australia’s largest-ever export contract.
Company chairman Clive Palmer said that coal mined in Queensland state from a major new project would be sold to China Power International Development Ltd (中國電力國際發展公司), a unit of China Power Investment Corp (CPI, 中電集團).
“This deal with CPI is Australia’s biggest-ever export contract,” Palmer said in a statement.
Executive director Phil McNamara, who helped broker the deal, said the contract with CPI was to supply 30 million tonnes annually over 20 years, with an approximate value of US$3 billion per year.
The announcement comes ahead of an expected IPO in Hong Kong next month that is thought likely to raise up to US$3 billion for Resourcehouse.
The coal will come from a new US$8 billion mining project in central Queensland, under development by Resourcehouse subsidiary China First Pty Ltd, which will establish a second major thermal coal mining region in Australia, alongside the Hunter Valley in New South Wales state.
China Power International Development Chairwoman Li Xiaolin (李小琳) welcomed the deal, saying its power plants mainly supplied electricity to the eastern, central and northern China grids
“The project is opening up a massive new coal resource and the CPI Group of companies are pleased to be involved in the project,” she said.
The China First project will be located in the Galilee Basin region near Alpha, west of the town of Emerald, and will include four underground mines, two surface mines, plus associated handling and processing facilities.
It will be linked to a coal terminal on the Queensland coast at Abbot Point by a new 490km railway line.
The company says the project, which is awaiting final approval by the Queensland government, will create 6,000 jobs during construction and 1,500 when operational.
Resourcehouse said it had also awarded a US$8.013 billion contract to Metallurgical Corporation of China Ltd (MCC, 中國冶金科工公司) to build the mine and associated export infrastructure.
Resourcehouse’s board of directors includes Suntech Power Holdings Co Ltd (尚德太陽能電力公司) chairman Shi Zhengrong (施正榮) and former Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer.
Li is the daughter of former Chinese premier Li Peng (李鵬).
China, the world’s top coal producer and consumer, became a net importer of coal last year, after more than tripling its coal imports to feed faster-than-expected recovery in demand that was compounded by a harsh winter.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six