Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (台化) could have its plant in Changhua County shut down for failing to adhere to a coal standard it had promised to meet, the county government said yesterday.
The Changhua Environmental Protection Bureau said that if the company does not lower the sulfur content in the bituminous coal it uses to generate power, the permits for the plant’s three power generators would not be renewed when they expire on Sept. 28.
Without the three power generators, the plant will likely be forced to shut down, county authorities said.
The sulfur content in the bituminous coal used by Formosa Chemicals was 1.2 percent — higher than the 0.84 percent to 0.87 percent promised by the company, they said, adding that they had repeatedly asked the company to make improvements before the deadline.
The Changhua plant specializes in the production of select artificial fibers, including nylon and rayon.
If the plant is closed, about 1,000 workers would lose their jobs.
Formosa Chemicals, a listed member of the Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), said it has come up with an alternative proposal to solve the pollution problems at the Changhua plant to prevent a shutdown.
Formosa Chemicals vice chairman Hong Fu-yuan (洪福源) said the firm had submitted a proposal to the bureau to maintain sulfur oxide emissions under 50 parts per million (ppm) effective immediately.
The company will work on further lowering emissions levels to 25ppm in four years to meet the most stringent world standards, he said.
However, a bureau spokesman said the agency had rejected the alternative proposal, because it has nothing to do with lowering the sulfur content in the bituminous coal used by the plant.
The bureau said that the company will either have to buy more expensive coal with a lower sulfur content or install equipment to clean and remove sulfur from its coal.
So far, Formosa Chemicals has failed to directly deal with the problem, the bureau said.
Any decision by the bureau to extend the deadline for renewing the operating licenses of the three generators would depend on whether Formosa Chemicals is able to cut the sulfur content.
Hurt by escalating competition from China, the Changhua plant is the only production site of Formosa Chemicals that is not profitable, having lost almost NT$1.7 billion (US$54.35 million) over the past five years.
Despite the sustained losses, the company said that it still wanted to operate the plant so that its employees could keep their jobs.
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