TAIPEI, May 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Taiwan Cement Corp. ("TCC") announced first quarter 2021 consolidated financial report.
Strong Demand in Cement Markets
The overall cement business contribution continued to grow in first-quarter 2021. Despite weak sales prices in the Mainland China cement businesses in the first quarter of 2021, the sales prices have been increasing steadily starting in April, pushing gross margin to rebound back to the normal second-quarter level. In Taiwan cement and RMC market, due to strong infrastructure and property demand, gross margin grew to 21.5% in first-quarter 2021 compared to 15.3% in first-quarter 2020. Overseas cement businesses have been showing continuous growth as Turkey cement market saw sales volume grew by 30% YoY in 2020 while cement price showed 25% YoY growth. Portugal cement market experienced 12% YoY growth in sales volume in 2020 while cement price remains higher than most markets in the world.
Diversification and Internationalization of our Power Business
TCC has been actively developing our renewable energy business such as wind power, solar, geothermal and ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) while expanding our energy storage, smart grid (microgrid), and high-end battery manufacturing businesses that aims to help reduce carbon and generate healthy profits.
TCC announced in March 2021 to invest up to NT$10 billion for building a new 1.8GWh super battery plant. This will be the largest battery plant in Taiwan. In April 2021, TCC's subsidiaries, TCC Green Energy and E-Moli, jointly completed and activated Taiwan's first automatic frequency control system (AFC) with energy storage system (ESS) installation capacity of 5MW. This is Taiwan's first large-size energy storage project. Connected to the grid, AFC helps the state-owned power provider, Taiwan Power, to expand its ESS power auxiliary services to continue providing stable energy supply.
In addition, TCC announced in the same month to acquire 60.48% of common shares of Italy-based, France-listed energy storage and electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure provider, ENGIE Eps, and become the largest shareholder of the company. The cooperation with ENGIE Eps can help TCC to become a comprehensive storage solution provider and enter the global markets for EV fast chargers, smart grid (microgrid), and hydrogen.
Waste Treatment and Carbon Reduction
TCC uses industrial and toxic wastes for alternative fuel and material. In 2020, the total alternative fuel, material, clinker and cement used in TCC's Greater China businesses reached over 9 million tons, equivalent to reducing 6.2 million tons of carbon emissions.
Nelson Chang, TCC Chairman, stated, "Climate change and waste treatment are the two major issues faced by modern society today. In particular, not only do companies need to rapidly reduce a significant amount of pollution, wastes, and carbon emissions, but also need to actively help the Earth to repair the damages on the environment caused by humans in the past hundreds or more years." Chairman Chang believes renewable energy is the only choice to maintain economic growth in the future because if carbon emissions continue to rise, climate change will produce enormous disasters, therefore, carbon reduction is the most important topic. To reduce carbon emissions, using alternative fuel and material for cement production, adopting renewable energy, and expanding energy storage usage are crucial and TCC aims to play our role in helping society achieving the goal of a low carbon environment.
Taiwan Cement Corp.: https://www.taiwancement.com/en/index.html
