Taiwan Cement Corp (台灣水泥) on Monday said that profit this quarter is expected to rebound after falling by nearly 50 percent in the third quarter due to rising prices for raw materials, especially coal.
Net profit for the third quarter fell 46.88 percent year-on-year to NT$3.98 billion (US$143.22 million), or earnings per share of NT$0.59, down from NT$1.30 a year earlier, company data showed.
In the first three quarters of this year, Taiwan Cement’s net profit declined by 19.4 percent annually to NT$14.84 billion, or earnings per share of NT$2.41.
Photo courtesy of Taiwan Cement Corp
Taiwan Cement president John Li (李鐘培) told investors that soaring fuel costs, as well as the environmental and electricity policies enacted in China since September, resulted in a drastic decline in cement production last quarter.
However, the firm’s cement operations in Turkey and Portugal enjoyed higher cement prices, Li said.
In the first three quarters, the Turkish and Portuguese plants saw profit rise 60 percent year-on-year. The Portuguese plant has also been accumulating a substantial amount of carbon credits that are yet unsold, he said.
The firm has also branched into the waste disposal and low-carbon energy businesses, it said.
In July, it purchased NHOA, an Italian energy storage company that Taiwan Cement said it hopes to grow into a power player in the vehicle charging station market over the next 10 to 20 years.
Despite the firm becoming an energy developer, it faces macroeconomic challenges on all fronts, including rising inflation in the US and real-estate woes in China, which are much bigger than individual firms can deal with, Li said.
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