State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said it signed an agreement with China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec, 中國石油化工) to conduct joint energy exploration off northern Australia.
CPC will buy a 40 percent stake in China Petrochemical’s NT/P76 offshore block from the Beijing-based refiner and oil producer, the Taiwanese oil company said in a statement posted on its Web site yesterday. It gave no financial details.
“CPC is now more inclined to cooperate with China’s oil majors, after in the past competing with them for assets in Africa,” said Yang Feng-shuo (楊豐碩), director of energy studies at Taiwan Institute of Economic Research in Taipei.
“I believe there’ll be more cases of similar cooperation,” Yang said.
CPC and Sinopec have yet to discuss details of their cooperation, CPC vice president Lin Maw-wen (林茂文) said by telephone yesterday.
The NT/P76 block, which Sinopec, China’s largest oil refiner, bought outright in an auction last year, may hold as much as 368 billion cubic meters of natural gas, CPC said.
CPC first cooperated with Sinopec in 2004, when the companies joined exploration in an Australian area known as AC/P21, operated by Italy’s Eni SpA, CPC said in the statement.
The Taiwanese company said in May it was in talks with China National Offshore Oil Corp (中國海洋石油), China’s third-biggest oil producer, to buy some of the Beijing-based company’s rights to a Cambodian oil area, after acquiring a 30 percent stake in a Kenyan block from the Chinese company in December.
The two are also jointly exploring energy sources in the Taiwan Strait.
Meanwhile, CPC said its ethylene plants have returned to normal operations after production was cut in the wake of Typhoon Morakot.
The refiner’s three ethylene plants, known as naphtha crackers, are operating at 95 percent capacity, after output was cut to 70 percent on Sunday because flooding caused by Typhoon Morakot reduced demand for the petrochemical from customers, Lin said.
About five of the stations remained closed and the company “expects to clean them all up today,” Lin said.
CPC is standing by to provide gasoline and diesel for relief efforts, he said.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
‘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.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
RSS