遠東集團

The petrochemical and energy business is an industry in which the Far Eastern Group has promoted upstream integration to expand its synthetic fiber operations. The initial reason was to ensure a stable supply of raw materials, but the current focus is specialty chemicals and green, environmentally-friendly raw materials. By adopting a differentiated strategy, the objective is to accelerate the growth of our business and improve competitiveness.

Far Eastern Group completed vertical integration of its synthetic fiber, spinning, weaving, dyeing and apparel businesses in 1971, then further planned and invested in upstream synthetic fiber raw materials to ensure a stable supply of key raw materials. 

Responding to the government’s call for the development of the petrochemical industry, the Group launched “Oriental Union Chemical Corporation” in 1975 to produce Ethylene Glycol (EG), a polyester raw material. In 1990, “Alberta & Orient Glycol Co., Ltd.”, a joint venture with US firm Union Carbide and Japanese firm Mitsui, was formed in Canada, using natural gas for low-cost EG production.

In 1995, the Far Eastern Group entered into a joint venture “Far Eastern Brunner Mond & Co.” with British firm Brunner Mond & Co. (ICI) for the production of Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA), another key raw material in the production of polyester. The Group acquired all shares in this joint venture in 2008, at which time it had an annual capacity of 1 million tons, and renamed it “Oriental Petrochemical (Taiwan) Corporation”. Furthermore, the Far Eastern Group tapped China's fast-growing polyester market by investing in the wholly owned subsidiary “Oriental Petrochemical (Shanghai) Corporation”, which began PTA production in Shanghai in 2006 and has an annual production capacity of 740,000 tons.

Oriental Union Chemical Corporation has expanded its business lines to include specialty chemical products and industrial gases, producing Ethanolamine (EA), Ethylene Carbonate (EC) and various other industrial gases. In 2008 and 2015 respectively, Oriental Union Chemical Corporation established Oriental Petrochemical (Yangzhou) Corporation and Far Eastern Petrochemical (Yangzhou) Ltd. in Yangzhou, China to produce Ethylene Oxide , Ethylene Glycol and Ethylene Oxide Derivatives (EOD). In recent years, the company has explored the fields of biomass materials research and pursued environmentally-friendly and sustainable development.

Chiahui Power Corporation is Far Eastern Group’s latest initiative in leveraging its past experiences in waste heat recovery and utilization for power generation at cement plants and is in accordance with the government's long-term power development plans. Its current commercial operational output is 670,000 kilowatts.