Formosa Plastics Corp (FPC, 台塑), the nation’s largest producer of polyvinyl chloride, said yesterday that its revenue this quarter would grow from NT$51.99 billion (US$1.73 billion) last quarter despite the unexpected shutdown of some of its factories.
The flagship company of the nation’s largest industrial conglomerate, Formosa Plastic Group (FPG, 台塑集團), last month saw revenue slip 0.5 percent to NT$19.63 billion from NT$19.98 billion in April because of malfunctions at its vinyl chloride monomer and polypropylene-producing facilities, company president Jason Lin (林健男) said.
The figure was down 1.73 percent from NT$19.98 billion a year ago.
The company plans to fix the equipment for making polypropylene by the end of this month and replace the reactor for making vinyl chloride monomer next month, the president said.
As a result, its utilization rate this month and next month will be lower than the 90 percent it had expected, Lin said.
The utilization rate could be 86.3 percent throughout this quarter, he said.
The company still expects revenue for this quarter to see quarterly growth because of high demand for its products, and aims to maintain its revenue next quarter at the same level as this quarter on the back of rising product prices, he said.
Meanwhile, Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), the nation’s only listed oil refiner, will shut down one of its three olefin factories from the middle of August to the end of September, Formosa Petrochemical president Tsao Mihn (曹明) said.
However, the company will raise its oil production to 450,000 barrels per day next month from 377,000 barrels a day this quarter and then increase it to 530,000 barrels a day starting in August in order to support its revenue next quarter, Tsao said.
Formosa Petrochemical posted revenue of NT$71.11 billion for last month, down 3.2 percent from NT$73.43 billion in the previous month and up 8.23 percent from NT$65.7 billion the previous year.
Another two units, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (台灣化學纖維) and Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), also reported rising sales last month.
Formosa Chemicals, which produces aromatics and styrenics, reported revenue of NT$37.05 billion last month, up 0.3 percent from NT$36.95 billion the previous month and 0.71 percent from NT$36.79 billion the previous year.
Nan Ya Plastics, the nation’s largest plastics maker, registered revenue of NT$28 billion last month, up 1.5 percent from NT$27.58 billion a month earlier and 8.44 percent from NT$25.82 billion a year ago.
Meanwhile, the group’s Vietnamese unit, Formosa Industries Corp (台灣興業), reported losses of NT$203 million for last month due to the anti-China protests on May 13 and May 14 in Vietnam, company president Hong Fu-yuan (洪福源) said.
Hong said the company would apply for compensation from insurance companies and also demand that the Vietnamese government offers more benefits.
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