Taiwan's Petrochemical Firms to Tap Solar-energy Materials Market

Taipei, March 2, 2011 (CENS)--The feverish solar-energy industry is driving Taiwan's petrochemical firms, including Formosa Plastics Corp., USI Far East Corp., Eternal Chemical Co., Evermore Chemical Industries Corp., and Tex Year Industries Inc., to rush to develop related materials. Taiwan is world's second-largest producer of solar-energy cells.

Over the past few months, Taiwan's petrochemical manufacturers have been diversifying into high-margin products as specialty chemicals to offset the impact of highly volatile crude oil prices.

Taiwan has to rely on imported polysilicon materials, the upstream product for the solar-energy industry. So far at least eight listed firms have entered the solar-energy business, which is expected to, amid the simmering development of the solar energy sector, benefit Taiwan's petrochemical suppliers.

Tex Year outsources EVA (ethylenevinyl acetate) chips to roll out solar-energy packaging films. Taiwan's firms that are successful in developing EVA chips for solar-energy packaging films include FPC and USI.

Taiwan Polysilicon Corp., a subsidiary of Lee Chang Yung Chemical Industry Corp., recently announced it has succeeded in developing polysilicon that will be certified in half a year, and will begin mass production of polysilicon sometime in the second quarter of this year.