Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), the nation’s biggest diversified industrial company, said it saves NT$16.5 billion (US$517 million) annually from conservation, more than covering the total cost of buying environmental equipment.
Formosa Plastics has spent NT$13.6 billion on energy and water conservation equipment, William Wong (王文淵), chairman of the executive board, said at a conference on Thursday in Mailiao (麥寮), Yunlin County, without giving a timeframe.
The investment saves 252,000 tonnes of water a day and cuts carbon dioxide emissions by 5.82 million tonnes annually, he said.
“We recovered the investment in energy and water conservation within a year,” Wong said. “It has created quite some economic benefits.”
The company’s plan to spend NT$8.8 billion building and expanding plants in Mailiao await approval from the government, which has pledged to cut emissions to 2000 levels by 2025. The vetting process includes an environmental-impact study by an official panel.
Taiwan accounts for about 1 percent of world emissions. It released 255 tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2008, the Bureau of Energy’s Web site said.
The energy industry accounts for 66 percent of the nation’s carbon emissions, compared with 16 percent from industrial output and 13 percent from transportation, Wong said.
“We should try our best to cut emissions,” he said.
Formosa Plastics plans to spend NT$281.7 billion to boost output of fuels, chemicals and solar power components in Taiwan, Lee Chih-tsuen (李志村), an executive board member, said in February.
The project will include capacity to make naphtha and polysilicon, used in solar panels, Lee said.
The group controls Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), the nation’s only publicly traded oil refiner, and Formosa Plastic Corp (台塑), the nation’s biggest maker of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC.
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