Taiwan's cement industry is among the business casualites of the 921 earthquake, but the power rationing imposed as a result of the quake has proven to be far more damaging. The industry has lost approximately NT$1.26 billion in sales due to power outages.
However, power should be fully restored today, according to Y.C. Cheng (程月初), secretary general of the Taiwan Cement Manufacturers' Association.
Intermittent power supplies forced several cement manufacturers with factories located in northern Taiwan to stop operations until last Friday, when Taipower agreed to supply 50 percent of each companies' normal electrical load to the factories.
"We have to keep rotary kilns working 24 hours because the kilns have to remain at high temperature, otherwise they will break," said Lee Kun-yen (李坤炎), senior executive vice president of Asia Cement Corp (亞泥).
Northern factories affected by the power problem include two from Taiwan Cement (台泥) and one each from Asia Cement, China Rebar (力霸), Lucky Cement (幸福) and Hsin Ta Cement (信大).
According to Cheng, those six factories are estimated to have lost NT$120 million a day in sales from Sept. 21-30 and NT$60 million a day from Oct. 1-4.
Despite the loss of sales and other earthquake related expenses, the quake is expected to provide a much needed relief to the sluggish cement industry.
Cement manufacturers have seen their business decline over the past few years owing to the moribund construction industry, the delay in several large public construction projects and the dumping of cement from other Asian countries. From a peak of 27.97 million metric tons in 1993, the annual demand for cement has dropped each year -- falling to just 21 million metric tons in 1997 and 20.70 million metric tons in 1998.
According to James Chu (朱晏民), a cement analyst in Credit Swiss Investment Consulting (Taiwan), the demand for cement for reconstruction efforts will increase by an estimated 1.8 million metric tons annually next year and 2001.
Responding the increasing demand for cement, the cement sub-index has risen 33.6 percent from 58.60 before the quake to 78.33 yesterday. In spite of that 33.6 percent increase, Chu pointed out that the price earning ratios of many cement stocks are still very low.
"However, many cement companies will probably see their business drop off for the next three months because many ready mix concrete plants were damaged, so the downstream demand for cement will be reduced temporarily. In addition, many construction projects have been temporarily halted because of the numerous aftershocks," Chu said.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
RSS