Taiwan’s oil giants may support each other

Speculations are rife that Taiwan’s two biggest oil giants and rivals will join forces for the first time and help each other. But Formosa Petrochemical Corp. (FPCC), a private, publicly traded company, and state-run CPC Corp. Taiwan reiterated that the two companies have supported each other in the past. Talks of cooperation between the two companies center on FPCC’s increased output of base petrochemicals to support the requirements of CPC’s downstream clients. Judging from the present market situation, shortages being faced by CPC’s downstream clients are not frequent and could easily be met by imports, according to FPCC. Currently, FPCC has annual output of 3 million metric tons of ethylene, 2.4 million metric tons of propylene and 450,000 metric tons of butadiene. (December 13, 2011)