Taiwans CPC Corp. entered a joint venture with Hexing Chemical and Uni-Shine Chemical Corp. to build a lubricant blending plant in Dong Nai Province, Vietnam, by the end of 2016.
CPC, a state-owned petroleum company, will hold 40 percent of the joint venture, while Hexing and Uni-Shine will each have 30 percent. The Vietnamese business is named Maxihub Co. With a total investment of approximately 1.6 billion new Taiwanese dollars (U.S. $51 million), Maxihubs plant will have annual production capacity of 27,500 metric tons.
The facility will also have 15 storage tanks with a combined capacity of 21,500 tons and harbor access to load and unload ships.
The joint venture will first target sales in Vietnam, then expand into other Southeast Asian countries. Vietnam is expected to reach an economic growth of 6 percent, and we will use the country as a base to gain a foothold in the huge ASEAN market, CPC said in a recent statement.
Maxihubs Kuo-Kuang and Mirage brands consist of industrial lubricants, passenger cars and commercial vehicles. Maxihub lubricants can be used for Japanese, European and American cars like Toyota, Mercedes Benz and Ford, company official Yang Ming He told Lube Report Asia. We will make use of imported API Group I, II and III from Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Singapore and Thailand for the new plant, he added.
CPC claimed its Kuo-Kuang brand holds over 30 percent of Taiwans lubricants market. The company has about 30 distributors carrying the brand, which is sold at more than 600 fuel stations and other outlets. CPC expects the brands sales volume to be NT 1 billion (U.S. $32 million) per year.
Uni-Shine Chemical Corp. is a subsidiary of Taiwanese liquid chemical storage tanks company, Shiny Chemical Industrial Co. Ltd., which has subsidiaries in China and Malaysia. Hexing Chemical is specialty chemicals company based in Anhui, China.