Taiwan’s energy demand fell for the first time in over a year on routine maintenance and unscheduled repairs

08-Dec-10

Taiwan’s energy demand fell for the first time in more than a year after the island’s biggest petrochemical maker shut plants for routine maintenance and unscheduled repairs, as per Bloomberg. As compared to the previous year, combined consumption of coal, petroleum, gas, thermal energy and electricity declined 0.1% at about 10.1 mln kiloliters of oil, or about 2 million bps. Formosa Petrochemical Corp. shut its second-largest ethylene plant on Oct. 5 for scheduled repairs. The company also halted a residual fuel processing plant and its smallest ethylene unit after fires in July. The combined utilization rate at crude oil distillation units operated by Formosa Petrochemical and CPC Corp., Taiwan’s two refiners, climbed to 66% from 59% in September.