Formosa Petrochemical Corp (FPCC, 台塑石化), the nation’s only listed oil refiner, is likely to see declining profit this quarter as annual maintenance affects its product shipments, the company’s president said last week.
Oil product shipments are forecast to decline to about 377,000 barrels per day on average this quarter, from 523,000 barrels a day last quarter, while shipments of refinery products will fall 28 percent over the period, president Tsao Mihn (曹明) said on Tuesday.
As a result, Tsao said net profit for this quarter would see sequential decline from NT$8.78 billion (US$291.5 million) last quarter, though he did not say how much the decline would be.
However, he said net profit for next quarter would return to the level in the first quarter after maintenance projects are completed.
Formosa Petrochemical began repair work at its residue fluid catalytic cracker in Mailiao Township (麥寮), Yunlin County, at the end of March.
It is the first maintenance at the cracker in 10 years and the work is expected to take three months, decreasing the company’s capacity by about one-third, Tsao said.
The company’s second crude oil distillation unit is also undergoing a 45-day maintenance until the end of this month, cutting oil shipments last month to 360,000 barrels a day from 509,000 a month earlier, he said.
Tsai said oil shipments for this month would rise to 370,000 barrels and could climb further to 400,000 barrels next month, if the maintenance ends early.
“Oil demand would rise this quarter as demand in the US and Europe surges with the approach of the tourist season in July, and as diesel demand increases in Muslim nations during the Ramadan holiday period,” Tsao said. “Nevertheless, oil supply around the world is also on the rise this quarter.”
Tsao said that West Texas Intermediate oil would be about US$100 per barrel this quarter, while Brent crude oil will be between US$105 and US$110 per barrel.
As a result, he forecast the company would see a quarter-on-quarter decline in oil product margins from about US$12 per barrel last quarter.
However, margins would still be above US$10 per barrel, he added.
Tsao said Formosa Petrochemical would keep its utilization rate near 100 percent this quarter in its olefin business, similar to a quarter ago, while prices are expected to stay the same.
Sales of oil refinery products account for 65 percent of Formosa Petrochemical’s annual revenue, while those of olefin products 27 percent. Formosa Petrochemical’s revenue decreased 15.9 percent to NT$73.43 billion last month from NT$87.32 billion in March, company data showed.
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