The government has decided to move the headquarters of state-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) to Kaohsiung, with its address to be officially registered in the southern city by the end of this year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
“It is positive that we are moving the company to Kaohsiung. The ministry has begun working on the plan,” Minister of Economic Affairs Lee Chih-kung (李世光) told lawmakers during a question-and-answer session at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee.
After a series of deadly explosions involving CPC’s pipelines in Kaohsiung between July 31, 2014, and Aug. 1, 2014, the Kaohsiung City Government requested petrochemical firms such as CPC and LCY Chemical Corp (李長榮化工) transfer their headquarters to the city so it can closely monitor their pipelines there.
LCY Chemical and Grand Pacific Petrochemical Corp (國喬石化) have already moved their headquarters to the city, the ministry said.
CPC previously said that it would be better for its headquarters to remain in Taipei instead of moving to Kaohsiung, as the company’s operations expand across the nation and overseas.
During yesterday’s meeting, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) urged the ministry to move not only CPC’s headquarters to Kaohsiung, but also higher-ranking CPC management.
CPC acting chairman Paul Chen (陳綠蔚) said the company would register its headquarters in Koahsiung before the end of this year, but the issue of asking management to move to the city would need further consideration, because it would involve many employees and personnel training issues.
An official at the Industrial Development Bureau, who declined to be named, said that if the government demands CPC management to move to Kaohsiung, then some high-ranking CPC employees might retire early.
“It is not easy to ask them to move to Kaohsiung, as their families are in Taipei,” the official said. “CPC might lose talented staff if those employees choose to retire early.”
In related news, Chen said the company plans to dismantle most of the oil storage tanks at one of its naphtha crackers in Kaohsiung in the next two years, following the closure of a complex at the end of last year.
However, Chen said one of the oil storage tanks in the complex should remain at its current location, as it would affect the stability of oil supply to southern Taiwan.
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