Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday.
The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei.
Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they can transport crude oil to the Red Sea through pipelines, while those in the United Arab Emirates are evaluating routing oil through pipelines to Oman for sea shipments, Fang said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
One tanker carrying about 2 million barrels has already been loaded and is docked in the Persian Gulf, but has yet to depart due to the conflict in the Middle East.
To mitigate risks, CPC has also been diversifying its crude oil sources, including exploring supplies from West Africa and assessing imports from Southeast Asia, Australia and the US, Fang said.
At the same meeting, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said the government is planning to provide financial support to help CPC address its mounting losses.
The company has been forced to absorb increases in crude oil prices on multiple occasions in recent years, including since the US and Israel launched an attack on Iran at the end of February, to keep domestic fuel prices stable.
To buffer the impact of the spike in crude oil prices triggered by the war, CPC has already run up losses of NT$9 billion (US$283.15 million), bringing its accumulated losses to NT$79.2 billion as of Tuesday last week, the Ministry of Economic Affairs estimates.
The losses have left the company with a net worth of only NT$86.1 billion, and lawmakers questioned Kung on plans to bolster CPC’s finances.
Kung said three approaches would be used, including increasing the company’s capital by NT$350 billion over four years.
Of that, NT$168.7 billion has already been included as part of the government’s fiscal budget request for next year, he said.
The ministry would also help CPC find NT$300 billion in new financing to improve cash flow and refinance some of the company’s debt, he said.
The other approach would be to provide subsidies to the company, but the amount and the source of the funds are still being discussed, Kung added.
LEVERAGE: China did not ‘need to fire a shot’ to deny Taiwan airspace over Africa when it owns ‘half the continent’s debt,’ a US official said, calling it economic warfare The EU has raised concerns about overflight rights following the delay of President William Lai’s (賴清德) planned state visit to the Kingdom of Eswatini after three African nations denied overflight clearance for his charter at the last minute. Taiwanese allies Paraguay and Saint Kitts and Nevis, as well as several US lawmakers and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) condemned China for allegedly pressuring the countries. Lai was scheduled to fly directly to Taiwan’s only African ally from yesterday to Sunday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s accession and his 58th birthday, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar suddenly revoked
The final batch of 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks purchased from the US arrived at Taipei Port last night and were transported to the Armor Training Command in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), completing the military’s multi-year procurement of 108 of the tanks. Starting at 12:10am today, reporters observed more than a dozen civilian flatbed trailers departing from Taipei Port, each carrying an M1A2T tank covered with black waterproof tarps. Escorted by military vehicles, the convoy traveled via the West Coast Expressway to the Armor Training Command, with police implementing traffic control. The army operates about 1,000 tanks, including CM-11 Brave Tiger
China on Wednesday teased in a video an aircraft carrier that could be its fourth, and the first using nuclear power, while making an allusion to Taiwan and vowing to further build up its islands, as it looks to boost maritime power, secure resources and bolster territorial claims. The video, issued on the eve of the 77th founding anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, featured fictional officers with names that are homophones of three commissioned aircraft carriers, the Liaoning (遼寧), Shandong (山東) and Fujian (福建). Titled Into the Deep, it showed a 19-year-old named “Hejian” (何劍) joining the group, sparking
BIG YEAR: The company said it would also release its A12 chip the same year to keep a ‘reliable stream of new silicon technologies’ flowing to its customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its newest A13 chip is to enter volume production in 2029 as the chipmaker seeks to hold onto its tech leadership and demand for next-generation chips used in artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance-computing (HPC) and mobile applications. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, also unveiled its A12 chip at its annual technology symposium in Santa Clara, California. The A12 chip, which features TSMC’s super-power-rail technology to provide backside power delivery for AI and HPC applications, is also to enter volume production in 2029, a year after the scheduled release of the A14 chip. The technology moves
RSS