TAIPEI (Bloomberg) -- CPC Corp., Taiwan’s only liquefied natural gas importer, is in talks with Qatar on a second long- term contract and expects to extend its agreement with Malaysia to secure the island’s energy supplies, its president said.

The oil refiner has secured “enough supplies” to replace expiring agreements, CPC President Chu Shao-hua said in an interview on Monday after a ceremony marking the opening of CPC’s Taichung terminal, which will boost the island’s capacity to handle LNG cargoes by 40 percent.
Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Co., a Qatari joint venture with Exxon Mobil Corp., started supplying LNG to CPC in 2008 under a 25-year contract for as much as 3 million metric tons a year. The Taiwanese refiner also aims to complete talks with an Exxon-led venture this year to buy LNG from Papua New Guinea, Chu said.
CPC, which has existing multi-year contracts to purchase the fuel from Indonesia, Malaysia and Qatar, may buy as much as 2 million tons a year from the PNG LNG project, he said.
The refiner may purchase about 8 million tons of LNG this year compared with 9.03 million tons in 2008, as demand from power generators and industrial users falls amid the recession, C.S. Lin, a vice president previously in charge of CPC’s LNG operations, said by telephone from Taipei on Feb. 19. Lin was later transferred to a CPC unit.
Taiwan’s government encourages the use of the cleaner- burning fuel as it aims to cut greenhouse-gas production. LNG accounts for more than 95 percent of the island’s gas supplies. President Ma Ying-jeou, who took office in May last year, has pledged to cut carbon emissions to 2000 levels by 2025.
--------------Expiring contracts
The state-owned Taiwanese energy company’s contract with Malaysia LNG Sdn. for 2.25 million tons a year will end in March 2015. Malaysia LNG is a unit of Petroliam Nasional Bhd.
CPC’s contract for 1.54 million tons a year of Indonesian LNG is expiring this year. The company has a second contract with Indonesia for 1.84 million tons a year that expires in 2017.
CPC signed an accord with Woodside Petroleum Ltd., Australia’s second-largest oil and gas producer, in November 2007 for purchases of as much as 3 million tons of LNG a year. Deliveries are to commence in 2013-2015.
The Taichung terminal, CPC’s second, is designed to process 3 million tons of the fuel a year. It will handle fuel from Ras Laffan, known as RasGas.
LNG is natural gas that’s been chilled to liquid form, reducing it to one-six-hundredth of its original volume for transportation by ship to destinations not connected by pipeline. On arrival, it’s turned back into gas for distribution to power plants, factories and households.