Taiwan is open to joining a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) program if one is created, but on the condition that countries provide delivery even in a scenario where there is a conflict with China, an energy department official said yesterday.
While Taiwan’s priority is to have enough LNG at home, the nation is open to exploring potential strategic reserves in other countries such as Japan or South Korea, Energy Administration Deputy Director-General Chen Chung-hsien (陳崇憲) said.
While the LNG market does not have a global reserve for emergencies like that of oil, the concept has been raised a few times — most notably by Japan in 2023. The US and Israeli attacks on Iran has upended the global gas market, triggering a wider conflict that has forced Qatar to close the world’s largest LNG export plant. About one-third of Taiwan’s LNG came from Qatar last year.
Photo: Cheng I-hwa, AFP
If Taiwan were to set up strategic reserves, “we must make sure those materials can be imported into Taiwan,” even if there are hostilities with China, Chen said.
Taiwan has about 11 days of LNG reserve onshore and plans to extend that to 14 days starting next year, he said. The long term goal would be to expand domestic stockpiles, provided exploration sites could be identified and the right environmental protections are put in place, he added.
Taiwan is making it a priority to shift away from the Middle East for its LNG imports, targeting 25 percent shipments from the US by 2029 from 10 percent today, Chen said, adding that there are also pans to increase purchases from Australia.
Taiwan imported one-third of its LNG from Australia last year.
Global LNG supply has been badly hampered by the war in Iran, with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz cutting the world off from about one-fifth of the total.
Asian LNG imports fell the most in more than three years last month as natural gas deliveries to the region declined 8.6 percent from a year earlier to about 20.6 million tonnes, ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg showed. That is the biggest drop since December 2022.
The region has been scrambling to seek alternative sources of energy, with countries including Bangladesh, India and Japan flocking back to coal, while in Vietnam, Vingroup JSC asked the government to allow it to replace an LNG project with renewable energy.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS