Four major units of Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), the nation’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday reported combined revenues of NT$116.6 billion (US$3.65 billion) for last month, up 4 percent from October and 5.7 percent from the same period last year, attributing the rise to improving utilization rates and rising crude oil prices.
Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑), the group’s flagship company, posted the highest sales growth among the four units.
Sales at the company rose 15.1 percent month-on-month and 20.9 percent year-on-year to NT$17.4 billion last month, company data showed.
“The performance was due to an increase in the production volume of the company’s major products, including acrylic esters and superabsorbent polymers,” Formosa Plastics Corp chairman Jason Lin (林健男) told a news conference in Taipei.
The utilization rate this quarter is forecast to reach nearly 92 percent, compared with 78.7 percent in the third quarter, Lin told reporters.
Rising prices of crude oil and propylene also helped lifted the company’s product prices last month, he added.
Three other Formosa Plastics Group units also reported revenue increases last month from the previous year, according to their separate stock exchange filings.
Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (台灣化學纖維), which produces aromatics and styrenics, reported revenue of NT$27.1 billion, representing a 1.9 percent year-on-year increase.
The figure was 3.6 percent higher than the NT$26.1 billion posted in October, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre vice chairman Hong Fu-yuan (洪福源) said, attributing the increases to rising product prices of orthoxylene and styrene monomer.
Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), the nation’s largest plastics maker, saw its sales reach NT$24.4 billion last month, up 6.9 percent month-on-month and 10.8 percent year-on-year.
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (FPCC, 台塑石化), the nation’s only listed oil refiner, posted revenue of NT$47.8 billion last month, an annual increase of 0.9 percent, but a 0.7 percent decline from the previous month.
Last month, prices of olefin products increased by an average of US$58 per tonne from the same period last year, which helped to boost sales, FPCC president Tsao Minh (曹明) said.
The group gave a conservative outlook for the first quarter of next year, due to concerns about future oil prices.
OPEC is to hold a meeting with non-OPEC producers on Friday to discuss oil production cuts and the results would definitely influence material prices, Tsao told reporters.
Fourteen OPEC members have reached a deal to curtail oil production for the first time in eight years, cutting oil production from 33.8 million barrels per day to 32.5 million per day.
From January through September, the group reported cumulative revenues of NT$1.19 trillion, a 10.9 percent decline from the same period last year.
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