CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) is to appoint company vice president Lee Shun-chin (李順欽) as its new president, replacing Liu Cheng-hsie (劉晟熙), who has resigned due to health reasons, local media reported on Saturday, citing Ministry of Economic Affairs sources.
CPC, along with three other state-run companies — Taiwan Power Co (台電), Taiwan Sugar Corp (台糖) and Taiwan Water Corp (台水), is under the supervision of the ministry’s State-Owned Enterprise Commission.
The appointment is pending the approval of the Executive Yuan and the ratification of the refiner’s board in a meeting scheduled to be held later this month, media reported.
Lee, 65, has worked at CPC for 38 years and is also chief executive officer of the company’s refinery business division.
He is to take office next month at the earliest and must deal with a controversial liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal project off the coast of Datan Borough (大潭) in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) amid opposition from environmentalists, reports said.
CPC plans to start the construction of the LNG terminal in June and the ministry has proposed to reduce the planned area of the terminal to protect coastal algal reefs, but the project has yet to pass an environmental impact assessment by the Environmental Protection Administration.
Separately, CPC yesterday announced that it will hike fuel prices this week for the fifth week in a row, as crude oil prices moved higher last week amid growing market confidence that OPEC will maintain its efforts to implement an output cut and due to a continued decline in the US crude oil inventories.
CPC said that its average cost of crude oil increased by US$1.34 per barrel to US$67.06.
This meant it had to increase gasoline prices by NT$0.2 per liter and diesel prices by NT$0.3 per liter from today after factoring in the New Taiwan dollar’s appreciation of NT$0.012 against the US dollar, the refiner said.
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