Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), the nation’s state-run utility, is in talks to invest in a mine in Australia being developed by Hancock Coal, owned by India’s GVK Group and Hancock Prospecting Pty, to help secure supplies of the fuel.
The talks are at an initial stage, Taipower spokesman Roger Lee (李鴻洲) said by telephone yesterday, without giving details.
Taiwan imports all the coal it requires. The fuel accounted for about 40 percent of the nation’s electricity output last year, Lee said.
A deal with Hancock would be Taipower’s second investment in a coal mine, after it acquired a 10 percent stake in the Bengalla mine in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales, he said.
Paul Mulder, head of GVK Group and Hancock Prospecting’s Hancock Coal unit, couldn’t be reached on his mobile phone for comment.
Taipower is the nation’s monopoly grid operator and biggest electricity producer.
The company buys about 27 million tonnes of coal a year, Lee said.
Taipower has accumulated losses of NT$110 billion (US$3.72 billion) as of the end of last year. The company has projected a deficit of more than NT$100 billion this year, if the nation’s electricity prices are maintained at current levels despite rising fuel costs.
Fuel costs account for 70 percent of Taipower’s total electricity production costs, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-
shiang (施顏祥) told lawmakers on Wednesday.
Additional reporting by CNA
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