Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd has rejected claims that three liquified natural gas storage tanks it built for Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) have leaks, saying they met with Taiwanese specifications.
In a written statement faxed to the Taipei Times, Mitsubishi Heavy said "... the tanks have been constructed completely in accordance with the contract and all applicable Taiwan laws."
While Mitsubishi Heavy has already transported the three refrigerated storage tanks to Taiwan, each of which can hold 130,000 kiloliters of liquified natural gas, the state-run Chinese Petroleum has refused to take official delivery of them saying they detected leaks that pose a serious safety hazard.
Mitsubishi Heavy maintains that the tanks are sound, saying in the statement that "The tanks were inspected, approved and legally verified as reliable and safe by the Taiwanese authorities as well as by independent third parties."
The statement did not identify which Taiwanese authority or "independent third parties" verified the integrity of the tanks.
An executive at Chinese Petroleum yesterday doubted the claim saying that no government agency had approved the tanks and that the Cabinet-level Council of Labor Affairs had in fact ruled them unsafe due to leaks.
Chinese Petroleum maintains the tanks leak and in January last year filed a civil suit with the Taipei District Court seeking compensation of NT$12.8 billion for "business losses" and for Mitsubishi Heavy to repair the tanks, an executive at the company said.
"We still hold NT$4.5 billion in unpaid final payments and security deposits," the executive said, adding that Chinese Petroleum will hang on to the cash until Mitsubishi Heavy repairs the tanks.
As for the final word on the leaks, the executive said that "the court will determine whether the tanks" meet the safety specifications.
The ongoing dispute has aroused tempers at Chinese Petroleum, with chairman Chen Chao-wei (
Chen had previously suggested wrongdoing by Mitsubishi Heavy and called for the Japanese firm to be barred from participating in public works projects in Taiwan.
Mitsubishi Heavy countered in its statement saying it "... denies any wrongdoing in connection with this matter and believes that there is no reason for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to be excluded from bidding on any future projects in Taiwan."
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
RSS