BP has billed a subsidiary of Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co up to US$1.9 billion to cover costs from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Japanese company said yesterday.
The Japanese firm added that MOEX Offshore, wholly owned by a US unit of Mitsui Oil Exploration Co, had withheld payment amid uncertainty “as to how to calculate the total claimed amount.”
It said it had not paid given “ongoing investigations to determine the facts and circumstances surrounding the incident and given there is uncertainty at this time as to whether MOEX Offshore will have to make payment.”
MOEX Offshore owns 10 percent of the Macondo project operated by BP, while US firm Anadarko Petroleum Corp owns a 25 percent interest and BP owns the rest.
The firm added it had asked BP for clarification of its total liability, but the British company had not responded as of the end of last month.
It added that it saw its share of the costs as being nearly half that demanded by BP. The oil disaster began on April 20 when the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded in the Gulf, 80km off the coast of Louisiana, killing 11 workers, and sank two days later.
The broken well was eventually plugged, but not before it had gushed about 4.9 million barrels (779 million liters) of oil into the Gulf. The spill damaged hundreds of kilometers of fragile coast and caused BP’s shares to collapse.
Robert Dudley, who replaced Tony Hayward as BP chief executive officer last month, said earlier this year that BP would “vigorously” pursue its partners for costs as it also sells off assets to pay for the spill. The company has said it expects the Gulf of Mexico spill to cost it more than US$32.2 billion, taking into account compensation as well as clean up costs.
After receiving earlier invoices, Mitsui said it would withhold payments requested by BP to cover costs for the huge spill until the cause is fully determined.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
RSS