Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) yesterday said that private-sector refiners are willing to stop buying Russian naphtha should the EU ask them to, after a group of non-governmental organizations, including the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), criticized the nation’s continued business with the country.
While Taiwan joined the US and its Western allies in putting broad sanctions on Russia after it invaded Ukraine in 2022, it did not explicitly ban imports of naphtha, a major hard-currency earner for Russia.
While state-owned firms stopped importing Russian oil in 2023, there is no restriction on private companies to continue doing so.
Photo: CNA
Kung told legislators that his ministry had spoken with Formosa Petrochemical, which continues to buy Russian naphtha, and also spoken with the EU to ask its view.
“We will respect and abide by EU and G7 norms,” Kung said. “According to what I understand, next year the EU might say no more purchases.”
“We can only discuss this with our private companies, and they are willing to comply,” he said, when asked whether Taiwan would stop buying Russian naphtha.
“If the EU says next year, no more purchases, then they [private-sector refiners] would make no more purchases,” he said.
Formosa Petrochemical spokesperson Lin Keh-yen (林克彥) declined to comment on government guidance.
For the company, Russian naphtha remains the cheapest feedstock at a time when petrochemical makers are struggling with losses, yet the imports have been drawing international scrutiny.
“We simply expect markets to offer us competitive prices... We buy from everywhere, there is no preference, Russian naphtha is cheaper than most, say Middle Eastern or Indian naphtha,” Lin told Reuters last week after the CREA report was released.
Formosa Petrochemical, Asia’s largest importer of the petrochemical feedstock naphtha, buys its supplies through open-market tenders.
“We go for open bids via our tenders to buy naphtha, so it is not the case that we buy from Russia ... whichever is the lowest bid in the open market, we go with that, and Russian naphtha has been competitive,” Lin said.
“But for October delivery, we did not buy from Russia at all because there were no offers,” he said.
Taiwan has imported 75,000 barrels per day of Russian naphtha so far this year, up from 71,000 barrels per day last year, data from shiptracker Kpler showed.
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