Taiwan’s petrochemical industry imported record amounts of Russian naphtha last month, snapping up fresh supplies being churned out by an oil refinery thousands of miles away.
The nation imported almost 114,000 barrels a day of Russian naphtha last month, representing 66 percent of its total imports of the feedstock for the month, data from energy analytics firm Kpler showed. The hike — to an all-time high — consolidates Russia’s ranking as Taiwan’s top supplier, a position previously held by the United Arab Emirates.
The surge is mainly driven by a recent startup of a third condensate splitter at Novatek PJSC’s Ust-Luga refinery, Kpler lead crude analyst Viktor Katona said.
Photo: Reuters
So far this year, Taiwan was the destination for as much as 78 percent of all Novatek’s monthly naphtha exports from the Baltic Sea port, Kpler’s figures showed.
Russian fuel producers have been expanding in Asia and Latin America after western countries and their allies, earlier the main consumers of Russia’s oil products, banned the imports following the invasion of Ukraine.
Novatek’s Ust-Luga refinery processes condensate, a very light type of oil. It brought a third splitter online in mid-August, allowing for increased naphtha flows, Katona said.
As a result, in the second half of August and early September, the plant raised its processing runs to a historic high of more than 195,000 barrels a day, compared to around 140,000 barrels a day in previous months, industry data seen by Bloomberg showed.
That ramp up move coincided with a jump in Russian naphtha exports to Taiwan. It takes roughly 60 days for the Ust-Luga cargoes to reach the Asian country.
Shortly after the third splitter came online, Novatek started maintenance at at least one of the original units, which temporarily cut the plant’s runs, the industry data seen by Bloomberg showed
“Novatek’s Ust-Luga facility has yet to see a month when all three splitters are running at full capacity,” Katona said. “Once that happens in December or January, Russian flows to Taiwan could easily stay above 100 thousand barrels per day on a sustainable basis.”
Novatek did not respond to a request for a comment on the maintenance schedule and production levels at its Ust-Luga refinery.
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) today announced that his company has selected "Beitou Shilin" in Taipei for its new Taiwan office, called Nvidia Constellation, putting an end to months of speculation. Industry sources have said that the tech giant has been eyeing the Beitou Shilin Science Park as the site of its new overseas headquarters, and speculated that the new headquarters would be built on two plots of land designated as "T17" and "T18," which span 3.89 hectares in the park. "I think it's time for us to reveal one of the largest products we've ever built," Huang said near the
China yesterday announced anti-dumping duties as high as 74.9 percent on imports of polyoxymethylene (POM) copolymers, a type of engineering plastic, from Taiwan, the US, the EU and Japan. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s findings conclude a probe launched in May last year, shortly after the US sharply increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, computer chips and other imports. POM copolymers can partially replace metals such as copper and zinc, and have various applications, including in auto parts, electronics and medical equipment, the Chinese ministry has said. In January, it said initial investigations had determined that dumping was taking place, and implemented preliminary
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
CUSTOMERS’ BURDEN: TSMC already has operations in the US and is a foundry, so any tariff increase would mostly affect US customers, not the company, the minister said Taiwanese manufacturers are “not afraid” of US tariffs, but are concerned about being affected more heavily than regional economic competitors Japan and South Korea, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said. “Taiwan has many advantages that other countries do not have, the most notable of which is its semiconductor ecosystem,” Kuo said. The US “must rely on Taiwan” to boost its microchip manufacturing capacities, Kuo said in an interview ahead of his one-year anniversary in office tomorrow. Taiwan has submitted a position paper under Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act to explain the “complementary relationship” between Taiwan and the US
RSS