The cause of a fire late on Saturday at a Nankang Rubber Tire Corp (南港輪胎) plant in Hsinchu County’s Sinfeng Township (新豐) is under investigation, but the blaze is not expected to have a major effect on operations, the company said yesterday.
The fire began about 11:30pm on Saturday, and was extinguished about 1am yesterday, it said.
There were no casualties and damage to the plant was limited, the nation’s second-largest tire maker said in a regulatory filing.
Photo: Huang Mei-chu, Taipei Times
A preliminary investigation indicated the fire broke out in a machinery room on the top floor of a building outside the production plant, Nankang said.
There were no raw materials, semi-finished products or finished products at the site, so there were no chemical leaks or emissions that could harm human health, despite what some local media reports said, Nankang said.
Determining whether the blaze was sparked by overheating machinery or some other problem would have to wait until technicians arrived at the plant today to investigate the fire, it said.
“As the affected area is not the main production area, and the fire was extinguished in a timely manner, losses were controlled to a certain extent,” Nankang said, adding that it was fully insured against fires.
With some internal adjustments, it would be able to maintain normal operations, it added.
Nankang reported revenue of NT$1.96 billion (US$66.44 million) in the second quarter, down 15.7 percent from the first quarter and 19.7 percent from a year earlier, mainly due to lower shipments amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, shipments have improved every month over the quarter, and monthly sales growth remained in the positive territory in May and June compared with the decline seen in April, company data showed.
In the first half of the year, revenue totaled NT$4.16 billion, down 28.65 percent from a year earlier.
Nankang has yet to release its financial results for last quarter. In the first quarter, it reported a net loss of NT$128.38 million, compared with net income of NT$216.29 million a year ago.
SETBACK: Apple’s India iPhone push has been disrupted after Foxconn recalled hundreds of Chinese engineers, amid Beijing’s attempts to curb tech transfers Apple Inc assembly partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has recalled about 300 Chinese engineers from a factory in India, the latest setback for the iPhone maker’s push to rapidly expand in the country. The extraction of Chinese workers from the factory of Yuzhan Technology (India) Private Ltd, a Hon Hai component unit, in southern Tamil Nadu state, is the second such move in a few months. The company has started flying in Taiwanese engineers to replace staff leaving, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named, as the
The prices of gasoline and diesel at domestic fuel stations are to rise NT$0.1 and NT$0.4 per liter this week respectively, after international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to rise to NT$27.3, NT$28.8 and NT$30.8 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to rise to NT$26.2 per liter at CPC stations and NT$26 at Formosa pumps, they said. The announcements came after international crude oil prices
DOLLAR SIGNS: The central bank rejected claims that the NT dollar had appreciated 10 percentage points more than the yen or the won against the greenback The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell for a sixth day to its weakest level in three months, driven by equity-related outflows and reactions to an economics official’s exchange rate remarks. The NT dollar slid NT$0.197, or 0.65 percent, to close at NT$30.505 per US dollar, central bank data showed. The local currency has depreciated 1.97 percent so far this month, ranking as the weakest performer among Asian currencies. Dealers attributed the retreat to foreign investors wiring capital gains and dividends abroad after taking profit in local shares. They also pointed to reports that Washington might consider taking equity stakes in chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor
A German company is putting used electric vehicle batteries to new use by stacking them into fridge-size units that homes and businesses can use to store their excess solar and wind energy. This week, the company Voltfang — which means “catching volts” — opened its first industrial site in Aachen, Germany, near the Belgian and Dutch borders. With about 100 staff, Voltfang says it is the biggest facility of its kind in Europe in the budding sector of refurbishing lithium-ion batteries. Its CEO David Oudsandji hopes it would help Europe’s biggest economy ween itself off fossil fuels and increasingly rely on climate-friendly renewables. While
RSS