TECH HOPES: Formosa Petrochemical is putting research behind AI to help navigate crude procurement and IoT to automate the most hazardous production processes

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 09, 2019
By: Ted Chen  /  Staff reporter

The four major units of Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) yesterday issued a dim outlook for this quarter after mounting trade tensions and tumbling oil prices took a toll on earnings in the final quarter of last year.

The four companies reported that net income last quarter dropped 94 percent sequentially to NT$4.8 billion (US$155.66 million), while net income the whole of last year fell 10.7 percent annually to NT$217.55 billion.

Revenue last quarter also dropped 5.6 percent sequentially to NT$417.64 billion, with the top line last year rising 16.3 percent annually to NT$1.5 trillion.

Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), the group’s oil refinery arm, took the brunt of the impact, with its income during the October-to-December period falling 120.2 percent sequentially to NT$4.18 billion in the red — its first quarterly loss since the fourth quarter of 2014.    [FULL  STORY]