State-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) has denied media reports that a proposed new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Keelung would create traffic jams and pose safety risks to one of the country’s busiest ports.
Taipower’s plans to build the new LNG terminal, the country’s fourth, are designed to accommodate the conversion of the nearby 2,000-megawatt oil-fired Hsieh-ho Power Plant into a gas-fired plant.
The utility’s initial proposal to build the terminal off the coast of Keelung’s Waimushan (外木山) was put on hold after critics said that it would endanger a coral reef.
Taipower then issued a revised proposal to move the terminal’s location from the west to the east side of the power plant, closer to the mouth of the Port of Keelung.
The plan is undergoing a preliminary environmental impact assessment.
The Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday published a front-page report quoting anonymous Keelung Port officials as saying that the utility was moving ahead with the plan “at all costs,” disregarding its impact on port operations so that it can meet Taiwan’s energy needs.
LNG shipments would snarl ship traffic in the port and create a risk of gas leakage or explosions, which could force a stoppage of port operations and risk injuries, the newspaper quoted the officials as saying.
Taipower yesterday strongly denied the claims in a statement, saying that a similar LNG terminal inside the Port of Taichung has received more than 1,000 gas shipments without any adverse impact on ship traffic.
The utility said it had also conducted “simulations” showing the terminal would not affect ship traffic, and pledged that as long as the facility was effectively managed, it would not pose any danger to the port.
Taiwan has in the past few years relied on an increasing number of LNG imports as it attempts to meet the government’s goal to phase out nuclear power.
LNG last year accounted for 37.2 percent of Taiwan’s energy mix — compared with only 25.46 percent in 2011 — while coal accounted for 44.30 percent, nuclear 9.55 percent, oil 1.83 percent and pumped storage hydropower 1.09 percent.
The remainder came from a variety of renewable sources, Bureau of Energy data showed.
A plan to build the country’s third LNG terminal off the coast of Datan Borough (大潭) in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) passed an environmental impact assessment in March.
The plan last year survived a national referendum to have the terminal relocated.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai
RSS