ENERGY
Indonesia boosts local coal
Indonesia’s state utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) yesterday said that together with the Indonesian Ministry of Energy it was strengthening a coal delivery monitoring system to ensure enforcement of domestic sales rules and energy security. The world’s biggest thermal coal exporter introduced an export ban on Jan. 1 as coal inventories at local power plants were at critically low levels, amid low compliance with a so-called Domestic Market Obligation (DMO). Under the DMO, miners must sell 25 percent of their output to the local market with a price cap of US$70 per tonne for power plants, below the current market price. Coal deliveries to local power plants will be monitored throughout the supply chain by PLN and a ministry department, while miners would receive automated warnings for any late shipments.
ENERGY
LG prices shares
LG Energy Solution priced shares to raise 12.75 trillion won (US$10.7 billion) in South Korea’s biggest initial public offering, setting aside concerns about battery fires that led to a mass recall of Chevrolet Bolt electric cars. At 300,000 won apiece, the shares were priced at the top of the marketed range, Seoul-based LG Energy said in a filing yesterday. The deal values the battery maker at about US$59 billion, ranking it the third-biggest company on the benchmark KOSPI, behind chipmakers Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The offering was 2,023 times subscribed by institutional investors, LG Energy said. The firm is seeking to increase production capacity to meet burgeoning global demand for electric-vehicle batteries and improve the quality of its cells following a US$1.9 billion recall of General Motors Co’s Bolt EVs. It also wants to close the gap with market leader, China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co (寧德時代).
UNITED KINGDOM
Economy gains ground
The economy in November surpassed its size from before the COVID-19 pandemic for the first time with surprisingly strong growth before the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 struck. GDP rose 0.9 percent from October, when it gained 0.2 percent, the Office for National Statistics said yesterday. Output was 0.7 percent above its level in February 2020, before the pandemic started. Growth was driven by stronger-than-expected gains in construction and manufacturing. However, economists are forecasting contractions last month and this month, when the virus led to unprecedented levels of staff absences.
AUTOMAKERS
Outbreak adds to stress
More global automakers have been caught in China’s latest COVID-19 outbreak in Tianjin, adding further stress to already strained supply chains. A production plant operated by Volkswagen AG’s (VW) joint venture with FAW Group (中國第一汽車集團) has been shuttered since Monday, along with a gearbox supplier controlled by the German automaker, VW said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. They join a Toyota Motor Corp factory that has been closed for five days. The closure of the VW plant might hit production of Tayron, Tayron X and Tayron plug-in hybrid models, and the Audi Q3, the company said. VW said that it expects to resume output “very soon” and catch up with lost production. Volkswagen has about 8,000 employees in Tianjin. The Toyota plant produces about 500,000 vehicles a year, including models such as the Corolla sedan and Rav4 SUV.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”