The nation’s supply of ethylene will become problematic by 2015 if a proposed petrochemical development project is scrapped, a Ministry of Economic Affairs official said yesterday.
Industrial Development Bureau Director-General Woody Duh (杜紫軍) said the proposed Kuokuang complex in Changhua County would offer a major alternative supply after the state-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC) closes its fifth naphtha cracker in Greater Kaohsiung in 2015.
Duh said demand for petrochemical products would grow as the economy develops and the project is necessary to fill the shortfall that will be caused when the fifth naphtha cracker closes.
Duh said Taiwan currently meets 97 percent of its domestic ethylene needs with annual production of 3 million tonnes, including 500,000 tonnes produced by CPC’s fifth naphtha cracker.
However, because building a petrochemical plant would take between four and five years, Duh said that if the Kuokuang project was not given the go-ahead soon, the industry would soon face an ethylene shortfall and lose ground to other regional rivals in the industry.
He said Singapore began promoting its petrochemical industry four years ago, around the same time that Taiwan started pushing the Kuokuang project. Today, Singapore’s petrochemical park has already attracted investment from the US and the Netherlands and the city-state -produces more than 3 million tonnes of ethylene a year, posing a threat to Taiwan’s petrochemical industry, Duh said.
The Kuokuang project was initiated by Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co, an affiliate of CPC, to expand oil refining capacity and production of chemicals.
Environmentalists believe the complex will create costs that outweigh its economic benefits, including damaging the local aquaculture sector and the Dacheng Wetland, while putting the health of local residents at risk.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said on Monday the government would decide the fate of the project before next year’s election.
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