Ruentex Materials Co (潤泰精材) is confident that it will become Taiwan’s first cement supplier for offshore wind projects.
The company has been in talks with wind energy companies, as well as top engineering procurement, construction and installation firms, to explore opportunities in the immense market for concrete gravity foundations and structures, Ruentex Materials president Chiu Hui-sheng (丘惠生) told an investors’ conference in Taipei on Monday.
“Our role would be to provide cement materials, as well as installation personnel,” Chiu said, adding that the margins for specialty concrete and technical barriers would be much higher.
Beginning in 2020, offshore wind projects in the nation are expected to require up to 150,000 tonnes of high-grade cement for at least 700 turbines set to be installed across many projects, Chiu said, but added that it was still too early to quote prices.
While offshore wind energy companies in Taiwan have not announced their engineering procurement, construction and installation partners, and projects could ultimately use imported materials, Ruentex Materials is confident that its status as a Taiwanese company would be an advantage due to the government’s local content requirements, chairman Li Chih-hung (李志宏) said at the company’s annual general meeting in May.
“We believe we are the only company in Taiwan that has a good chance of passing the stringent standards on cement used in underwater structures,” Li told shareholders at the time.
As the government aims to make offshore wind energy one of Taiwan’s next major export industries, the company could become a leader in Asia and across the globe, he said.
On average, the foundation for a 4 megawatt wind turbine would require NT$200 million (US$6.5 million) of high-grade cement and 500 turbines would lead to total demand of more than NT$10 billion, Li said.
The company has observed an uptick in demand for cement foundations for housing construction projects, indicating a gradual warming of the nation’s real-estate market, he said.
The firm reported that aggregate net income in the first three quarters of this year rose 15.63 percent annually to NT$74 million, or earnings per share of NT$0.42, while revenue dropped 31.89 percent from a year earlier to NT$1.93 billion.
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