China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼) yesterday broke ground in Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor (興達港) for a plant to construct undersea foundation facilities for offshore wind turbines.
China Steel said it expects to complete construction of the plant in the Marine Technology Industry Innovation Zone (海洋科技產業創新專區) at the end of next year and begin mass production of 50 to 60 jacket foundations annually, starting in 2020.
President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration is promoting offshore wind farms as part of its plans to expand renewable energy generation to help relieve the strain on electricity supplies from state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電).
Photo: CNA
In light of the potential demand for undersea foundation facilities for offshore wind turbines, China Steel’s board approved investing NT$3.42 billion (US$116.72 million) to set up a company to take charge of the plant’s construction, the company said on March 28.
Last month the company announced it was teaming up with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and the Changhua County Government to develop three offshore wind farms on the west coast, with a total investment of more than NT$210 billion.
SIGNING CEREMONY
Cheng Ching-chung (程慶鐘), commissioner of China Steel’s wind power business development committee and chairman of the new company, signed a cooperation agreement with representatives of 11 supply-chain firms at yesterday’s ceremony, including CSBC Corp, Taiwan (台灣國際造船) chairman Cheng Wen-lon (鄭文隆).
Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) and Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) attended the ceremony, along with China Steel chairman Wong Chao-tung (翁朝棟).
The government wants to see 5.5 gigawatts of electricity generated by offshore wind farms by 2025, Shen said.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs would start the selection process for offshore wind farm projects this week, he said.
Seven of the 11 suppliers are based in Kaohsiung, which highlights China Steel’s efforts to localize the development of underwater foundations, Wong said.
The company also wants to build a local supply chain for wind turbines through collaborations with a variety of its business partners, he said.
FIVE NEW FABS: An acquisition of Siltronic would boost GlobalWafers’ market share from 17 to 30 percent, easily surpassing Japanese rival Sumco’s 25 percent GlobalWafers Inc (環球晶圓) yesterday said it is in final talks to acquire Germany-based Siltronic AG in a 3.75 billion euro (US$4.5 billion) deal, which might help it compete with its closest rival Sumco Corp of Japan. The acquisition would be the fifth for GlobalWafers since 2008, as it has grown to become the world’s No. 3 supplier of silicon wafers through such deals. GlobalWafers, which has a 17 percent market share, would see its market position greatly elevated to 30 percent when combined with Siltronic’s 13 percent, according to a presentation Siltronic gave to its investors at a quarterly conference in August. Sumco
With the speed cryptocurrency is emerging as the millennial generation’s alternative asset of choice in India, it is hard to imagine that just two years ago a couple of blockchain pioneers were briefly in police custody. Sathvik Vishwanath and Harish BV, cofounders of a then five-year-old start-up, were arrested in late 2018. No, they had not pulled off a shady initial coin offering. Their “crime” was that they put up a kiosk in a mall in Bangalore where customers could swap bitcoin, ether or ripple for cash or vice versa. That was the whole point of unocoin, their crypto token exchange.
CONCERNS: The bank would act if it noticed currency speculation, the governor said, but he did not comment on a likely trajectory of the NT dollar against the greenback The central bank would intervene in the market whenever necessary to help stabilize the New Taiwan dollar, central bank Governor Yang Chin-long (楊金龍) said yesterday, adding that it is concerned Taiwan might be placed on the US watchlist for currency manipulation. The Control Yuan recently sent letter inquiring about the central bank’s market regulation efforts, Yang told a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee on the NT dollar’s appreciation and property price hikes. “It is the central bank’s top responsibility to stabilize foreign exchanges,” he said. The central bank has often stepped in toward the end of trading sessions to moderate the NT
Qualcomm Inc expects global shipments of 5G smartphones to more than double to between 450 million and 550 million units next year from this year, driven by increasing 5G network deployment worldwide and broader adoption of 5G technology beyond smartphones, a company executive told a virtual news conference yesterday. The San Diego-based company said that more than five times more telecoms have commercially launched 5G services in the first 18 months of the 5G era, compared with wireless technology transitions to previous generations. The momentum is to pick up speed in 2022, with the shipment volume of 5G-ready smartphones projected to reach
RSS