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.
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