International Petroleum Investment Co (IPIC) signed an initial accord to buy a stake in a NT$370 billion (US$11.6 billion) petrochemical project led by Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中油), said Kuo Chin-tsai (郭進財), chairman of the Taiwanese refiner.
International Petroleum Investment and Chinese Petroleum have signed a letter of intent for the Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates-based company to buy the stake in the project in western Taiwan, Kuo told reporters during a national energy conference in Taipei yesterday.
The venture will replace a facility in Kaohsiung, in southern Taiwan, that Chinese Petroleum pledged to shut by 2015 amid complaints about pollution. The new plant will use more efficient technology and help the company compete with other refiners. An agreement with IPIC would form part of Chinese Petroleum's efforts to ensure crude oil supply for project.
"Through cooperation with IPIC, we hope to secure a source of raw materials," Kuo said. A Chinese-language newspaper reported earlier that IPIC may take a 20 percent stake in the project in western Taiwan, which will include a 300,000 barrels-a-day crude oil refinery.
Chinese Petroleum on Feb. 4 signed an agreement with five local partners for the project in Yunlin on Taiwan's west coast, which will include an oil refinery, a plant that turns naphtha, an oil product, into ethylene and dozens of units that produce other chemicals for plastics and textiles, the vice president Roy Chiu (
Several other Arab companies are also interested in the project, Kuo said, without naming the potential investors.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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