Civil groups flay FPCC's naphtha cracker expansion plan

28 Jul '12

2 min read

To protest against the Environmental Protection Administration’s (EPA’s) move of granting approval to fourth phase of the Formosa Petrochemical Corp.’s (FPCC’s) No. 6 naphtha cracker expansion in Southern Taiwan’s Yunlin County, several civil groups staged an agitation in front of the EPA headquarters.

The move of the activists just came ahead of the EPA’s 219th environmental meeting held to review and pass a seventh environmental impact report on the expansion project.

Claiming that the EPA has granted “conditional approval” to the expansion project in spite of its poor environmental assessment valuations, the environmental and medical groups called on the EPA to review the project in the light of the potential health risks.

As per the EPA’s conditions for approval, FPCC would have to curb greenhouse gas emissions and water utility in other factories across the country by 1.5 to 2 times.

Through its policy, the EPA intends to gradually push FPCC to achieve zero emission levels.

However, the civil activists highlighted that establishment of the No. 6 cracker has raised the vulnerability of Yunlin Country people to health risks, which is evident from the fact that breast and lung cancer cases in the County have grown by five times in recent years.

The fourth phase of the expansion project would see establishment of a factory with an annual capacity of producing 40,000 tons of hydrogenated styrene-butadiene block copolymer (HSBC).

The NT$ 5.2 billion or US$ 172.27 million factory would come up as a result of joint venture between FPCC and Kraton Performance Polymers Inc., a US based global polymer producing firm.

The financial worth of the HSBC unit, which is expected to generate an annual production worth of NT$ 15 billion for downstream factories, is expected to reach NT$ 4.5 billion per year.

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