State-owned oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) has proposed a four-year capital increase plan to improve its financial health after accumulated losses reached NT$62.7 billion (US$1.96 billion) as of the end of last month, about 48 percent of the company’s paid-in capital of NT$130.1 billion.
The company plans to inject NT$350 billion in new capital over a four-year term, pending approval by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, new CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at an inauguration ceremony in Taipei.
CPC, a leading oil product provider and gas importer in Taiwan, plays a highly strategic role in the government’s energy transformation drive to boost the nation’s share of natural gas in power generation and develop alternative energy sources such as geothermal and hydrogen power as part of a push toward net zero emissions.
Photo: CNA
The company reported pretax losses of NT$30.4 billion in the first 10 months of this year, mainly due to its absorption of international oil and natural gas price hikes to avoid passing the higher costs to consumers.
Under a government policy to keep domestic consumer prices stable and local fuel prices lower than neighboring markets, the company is required to absorb part of price hikes.
To be sure, CPC is facing growing financial pressure under that policy, after absorbing NT$400 billion from 2021 to last year and spending NT$22.39 billion to absorb higher fuel costs in the first nine months of this year, Fang said.
The company would seek government support to reasonably reflect its oil and gas costs in retail prices, and also hopes the government can allocate subsidies or allow the company to increase its capital to bolster its financial health, he said.
To meet demand for natural gas from state utility Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), industrial users and households in northern Taiwan, CPC is building its third liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in Taoyuan’s Guantang Industrial Park (觀塘工業區).
CPC expects to complete the first phase of construction and start supplying natural gas to Taipower’s Datan Power Plant (大潭電廠) in March next year, Fang said, adding that the project is scheduled to be completed in 2029.
The company also plans to construct a new LNG receiving terminal in Kaohsiung’s Siaogang District (小港), and expects to conduct a second environmental impact assessment review for the site by the end of this year, he said.
The company’s existing LNG receiving terminals in Kaohsiung’s Port of Yungan and the Port of Taichung would undergo expansions to ensure sufficient gas supply, he added.
The Executive Yuan late last month approved the appointment of Fang as CPC chairman, replacing Lee Shun-chin (李順欽), while Michael Chang (張敏) was promoted from vice president to president, replacing Fang.
At yesterday’s inauguration ceremony at CPC’s headquarters in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義), Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Lien Ching-chang (連錦漳) said the new CPC leadership would have three key tasks: enacting carbon reduction, promoting artificial intelligence and developing green energy.
The government expects Fang and Chang to help engineer a corporate transformation at CPC, Lien added.
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
The average pay to employees by ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) was the highest among the companies listed on the local main board last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) ranked seventh, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) said on Monday. Data compiled by the exchange showed ASE Technology, the world’s largest chip packaging and testing services provider, paid its employees an average of NT$6.28 million (US$199,746) last year, up 40 percent from a year earlier. TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker and the most profitable company in Taiwan, paid its employees NT$4.09 million on average, up
RSS