Taipei, Jan. 17 (CNA) State-owned oil supplier CPC Corp., Taiwan has bought a piece of land in Kaohsiung on which it plans to build a new naphtha cracker to replace its No. 4 cracker at a cost of NT$82.3 billion (US$2.94 billion), a company spokesman said Sunday.
CPC's No. 4 cracker in Kaohsiung's Linyuan District has been in operation for 37 years and has an annual ethylene production capacity of 380,000 metric tons, which cannot meet the demand of its customers, CPC spokesman Chang Ray-chung (張瑞宗) said.
Given the strong demand for basic chemical raw materials and the potential demand from a new circular industrial park being developed in Dalinpu that is focused on innovative materials, CPC decided to build a new naphtha cracker to sustain adequate supply, Chang said.
The company is required, however, to build a new plant before it dismantles the old one, and getting a site for the new plant was pressing, Chang noted.
It chose for the project a 31-hectare lot it purchased in 2017 from chemical manufacturer China American Petrochemical Co. Ltd.
Chang said the state-owned company is set to start the new project in 2022 by applying for an environmental impact assessment and hopes to break ground in 2025 and begin production in 2028.
Once the new plant starts production, it is expected to produce 1 million metric tons of ethylene per year, 163 percent more than currently produced at the old facility, according to Chang.
