CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said that the Ichthys liquefied natural gas (LNG) project off northern Australia, in which it has a 2.625 percent stake, has started production.
The state-run refiner said that the Ichthys project in the Browse Basin would be an important addition to its fuel portfolio and help raise its energy self-sufficiency, a statement posted on its Web site said.
CPC joined the Ichthys project in 2013, making it the third-biggest stakeholder in the project after Japan-based Inpex Corp’s 62.245 percent stake and French energy giant Total SA’s 30 percent stake.
Other partners include Tokyo Gas Co, Osaka Gas Co, Kansai Electric Power Co, Chubu Electric Power Co and Toho Gas Co, as well as JERA Co, the world’s biggest LNG buyer.
CPC said Inpex on Monday announced that the Ichthys project had commenced production of gas from its first offshore well and that shipments are expected to start later this year.
The project comprises the development of the Ichthys gas field, an onshore LNG plant near Darwin, Australia, and a 889km gas pipeline that links the gas field and the LNG plant.
The Ichthys project is expected to produce up to 8.9 million tonnes of LNG and 1.6 million tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) annually at its peak, as well as up to 36.5 million barrels of condensate, a light crude oil, CPC said.
With its 2.625 percent interest in the project, CPC said it could obtain 234,000 tonnes of LNG, 43,000 tonnes of LPG and 958,000 barrels of condensate per year, which could raise the refiner’s self-sufficiency ratio of oil and natural gas by 1.1 percentage points.
CPC’s self-sufficiency ratio currently stands at 2.17 percent.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products