Resin manufacturer Swancor Holding Co Ltd (上緯) yesterday said its new plant in China is to start operating next month.
“The new facility in China’s Jiangsu Province will be able to produce 15,000 tonnes of corrosion-resistant materials per year,” chairman Robert Tsai (蔡朝陽) told an investors’ conference, citing rising demand in the Chinese market.
Tsai said that Swancor is also extending its footprint in Southeast Asia, hoping to duplicate its success there.
“We are going to build a new corrosion-resistant material factory in Malaysia next quarter,” he said.
Corrosion-resistant materials and wind turbine blade resin remained its two major sources of revenue, accounting for about 49 percent and 38 percent respectively of the total, company data showed.
Revenue from corrosion-
resistant materials climbed 4.6 percent annually to NT$473 million (US$15.7 million) in the first three months of the year, while sales of wind turbine blade resins plunged 45.7 percent to NT$354 million.
Swancor attributed the sharp drop in wind turbine blade resin sales to decreasing orders from Goldwind Science and Technology Co (金風科技), China’s largest wind turbine manufacturer.
To reduce reliance on a single customer, the specialty chemicals maker said it hoped to secure orders from another new Chinese customer in the second half of this year.
China accounted for 71 percent of Swancor’s revenue in the first quarter, while Taiwan contributed 16 percent, company data showed.
Swancor gave a relatively optimistic outlook for wind turbine blade resin sales, saying Chinese demand should improve as Beijing implements renewable energy reforms.
As part of its 13th five-year plan, Beijing aims to reduce curtailment — the amount of wasted wind power — to 5 percent within five years.
Several Chinese provinces last year recorded wind power curtailment rates of more than 20 percent, data compiled by the National Energy Administration of China showed.
Swancor said its offshore wind farm is scheduled to become operational by the end of 2019.
Its subsidiary, Formosa I Wind Power Co (海洋風電公司), has obtained a commercial operating license for a wind farm project from the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
The Investment Commission has approved Sydney-based Macquarie Capital’s and Denmark-headquartered DONG Energy A/S’s applications for shareholding stakes of 50 percent and 35 percent respectively in the project, Swancor said.
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