Taiwan's Formosa Plastics Group sees major drop in combined August sales

12-Sep-08

Taiwan's Formosa Plastics Group (FPG) has posted an 18.5% month-on-month slump in combined sales for August (amounting to US$4.44 bln) of its four subsidiaries including Formosa Plastics Corporation (FPC), Nan Ya Plastics Corporation, Formosa Chemical & Fibre Corporation (FCFC) and Formosa Petrochemical Corporation (FPCC). The decline in sales is attributed to downfall in crude prices leading to curtailment in inventory levels for buyers. The decline in August sales for FPCC was due to dipping major petrochemical materials like ethylene and propylene which was resulted from the decline in oil prices internationally. Of the major petrochemical materials, only butadiene saw a price hike in August. FPCC would cut the supply of ethylene and oil products in between September and October due to maintenance and repair wok on its equipment. In September the company will engage in maintenance and repair work on a set of oil-refining equipment and a set of ethylene production equipment which will affect its sales performance in both September and October. The annual maintenance and repair work will curtail firm's oil-refining capacity by between 25% and 30%.