Industrial conglomerate Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) has resumed production at some units of its petrochemical complex in Yunlin County, which were shut down by a power failure earlier yesterday.
FPG said it expected all affected units to come back online later in the day after it completed safety inspections on these sites, according to a statement released yesterday.
The incident occurred when Tropical Storm Talim was approaching Taiwan and causing heavy rain, but the news of the shutdown did not impact the share prices of the group’s four core companies.
The Yunlin petrochemical complex in Mailiao Township (麥寮), comprising the offshore Mailiao and Haifong industrial compounds, houses an oil refinery with annual capacity of 25 million tonnes of crude oil and three naphtha crackers, which produce 2.94 million tonnes of ethylene per year.
The complex also includes other petrochemical plants, heavy machinery plants, a co-generation power plant and the Mailiao Industrial Harbor.
The group said in the statement that “some plants in the Mailiao compound and all factories in the Haifong compound” had been shut down after a power outage that occurred at about 11:55am.
An investigation into the cause of the outagefound it was caused by malfunctions of the double busbar circuit system at the petrochemical complex’s public utility area.
A total of 54 out of the complex’s 66 units were shut down, but the group said most of these units were expected to be restarted after separating the failed circuit and repairing the public utility system, according to the statement.
The group did not disclose the potential damage from the temporary shutdown to these units operated by its core members — Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑), Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) and Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (台灣化纖).
Shares of Formosa Plastics Corp, the group’s flagship company, rose 0.88 percent to NT$80.1 and Nan Ya Plastics, the nation’s largest plastics maker, increased 1.42 percent to NT$57.3 yesterday.
Formosa Petrochemical, the nation’s second-largest refiner, moved up 1.09 percent to NT$83.7, while Formosa Chemicals & Fibre, which produces aromatics and styrenics, advanced 1.26 percent to NT$80.2.
Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday introduced the company’s latest supercomputer platform, featuring six new chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), saying that it is now “in full production.” “If Vera Rubin is going to be in time for this year, it must be in production by now, and so, today I can tell you that Vera Rubin is in full production,” Huang said during his keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas. The rollout of six concurrent chips for Vera Rubin — the company’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) computing platform — marks a strategic
Enhanced tax credits that have helped reduce the cost of health insurance for the vast majority of US Affordable Care Act enrollees expired on Jan.1, cementing higher health costs for millions of Americans at the start of the new year. Democrats forced a 43-day US government shutdown over the issue. Moderate Republicans called for a solution to save their political aspirations this year. US President Donald Trump floated a way out, only to back off after conservative backlash. In the end, no one’s efforts were enough to save the subsidies before their expiration date. A US House of Representatives vote
Shares in Taiwan closed at a new high yesterday, the first trading day of the new year, as contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) continued to break records amid an artificial intelligence (AI) boom, dealers said. The TAIEX closed up 386.21 points, or 1.33 percent, at 29,349.81, with turnover totaling NT$648.844 billion (US$20.65 billion). “Judging from a stronger Taiwan dollar against the US dollar, I think foreign institutional investors returned from the holidays and brought funds into the local market,” Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺) said. “Foreign investors just rebuilt their positions with TSMC as their top target,
REVENUE PERFORMANCE: Cloud and network products, and electronic components saw strong increases, while smart consumer electronics and computing products fell Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted 26.51 percent quarterly growth in revenue for last quarter to NT$2.6 trillion (US$82.44 billion), the strongest on record for the period and above expectations, but the company forecast a slight revenue dip this quarter due to seasonal factors. On an annual basis, revenue last quarter grew 22.07 percent, the company said. Analysts on average estimated about NT$2.4 trillion increase. Hon Hai, which assembles servers for Nvidia Corp and iPhones for Apple Inc, is expanding its capacity in the US, adding artificial intelligence (AI) server production in Wisconsin and Texas, where it operates established campuses. This