Integrated refining and production: a daily capacity of 720,000 barrels
CPC's three existing refineries - in Kaohsiung, Taoyuan and Dalin - have a combined
daily capacity of 720,000 barrels.
The Kaohsiung Refinery
, which handles 220,00 barrels daily, has the longest history
of the three and is a large integrated oil refining and petrochemical production facility
featuring complex and comprehensively equipped production processes.
The Taoyuan Refinery
came on stream in 1976, and following some renovations and
the addition of a second distillation plant now has a daily capacity of 200,000 barrels.
The Dalin Refinery
, which has a daily capacity of 300,000 barrels, became
operationally independent of the Kaohsiung Refinery in 1996. It has four offshore
mooring and unloading buoys as well as both large and small docks for the handling
of imported crude and loading petroleum products for export.
CPC's total output of petroleum products in 2013 amounted to 10.15 million kiloliters
of gasoline, 1.96 million kiloliters of aviation fuel, 6.554 million kiloliters of diesel fuel,
4.100 million kiloliters of fuel oil, and 493,000 metric tons of liquefied petroleum gas.
Upgrading the refining process to boost product quality and quantity
In response to Taiwan's increasingly demanding environmental and quality of life standards, coupled with demand for
a wider range of petroleum products, CPC has in recent years moved to improve the quality of its products and enhance
their production value. The refining and production facilities designed and built to both supply Taiwan's people with
higher-grade petroleum products and to raise production efficiency include reforming, isomerization, TAME (tert-
amyl methyl ether), diesel hydrodesulfurization, aviation fuel processing, N-paraffin processing, alkylation, heavy oil
conversion and gasoline hydrodesulfurization.
Additionally, CPC has built new facilities to be in compliance with the Environmental Protection Administration's (EPA)
directive that by 2011 the sulfur and aromatics content of gasoline and diesel fuel must be reduced to no more than
10 ppm and no more than 35 vol% and that the alkene content of gasoline must be reduced to no more than 18 vol%.
These new plants are: a 30,000-barrel-per-day cracked gasoline hydrodesulfurization plant at the Taoyuan Refinery,
completed in 2008; a 20,000-barrel-per-day cracked gasoline dydrodesulfurization plant at the Dalin
Refinery, completed in 2009 ; a 40,000-barrel-per-day diesel hydrodesulfurization plant at the Dalin Refinery, completed
in 2010 ; and relocation of the 18,000-barrel-per-day cracked gasoline quality improvement plant from the Kaohsiung
Refinery to the Dalin Refinery in 2011. All of those facilities duly completed pilot operation and entered mass production.
CPC's petroleum products are mostly intended to supply the domestic market, but some surplus is exported. Those
shipments amounted to approximately 4.98 million kiloliters in 2013, and went to Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia,
Malaysia, the Philippines, the UAE and China. Further development of export markets is planned as part of the effort to
boost the company's revenue and profitability.
Additional facilities constructed to supply CPC's markets include an 80,000-barrel-per-day residue fluid catalytic cracking
(RFCC) facility at the Dalin Refinery begun in 2006, which started pilot operation in November 2012 and which completed
performance testing and began mass production in 2013. The projected 70,000-barrel-per day residuum hydrotreating
(RDS) heavy-oil desulfurization plant project at the Taoyuan Refinery, was again put on hold for two years in November
2012, with the agreement of the Executive Yuan, due to strong resistance by nearby residents. At the Dalin Refinery,
implementation began in 2008 – and In conjunction with the completion of a heavy fuel oil conversion facility to make
use of the plentiful supply of crude butane feedstock – of a 14,000-barrel per day alkylation plant intended to further
improve the quality of gasoline and which began mass production in 2013. To boost the value of mixed C4 hydrocarbons
produced by the heavy-oil conversion plant through use in the manufacture of high-value petrochemical products, CPC
has planned the joint-investment construction of an 180,000-ton-per-year isononanol (INA) plant and a 144,000-ton-per-
year methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) plant; construction is expected to begin in 2014, with mass production in 2017.
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