China Industry: December 28

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Dec. 28 – This is a regular series of relevant industry news from around China.

Air transport
Air China said it had transported 3.64 million passengers in November, an increase of 8.3 percent over November 2009. Passenger load factor decreased 2.5 percentage points to 76.8 percent.

Air China carried a total of 105,500 tons of mail and cargo, up 13.5 percent year-on-year. Cargo load factor climbed 4.3 points to 64.6 percent.

China Southern Airlines said it had carried 5.84 million passengers in November, an increase of 3.7 percent compared with the same month in 2009. The company’s passenger load factor fell 1.0 percentage point to 76.5 percent.

China Southern Airlines transported 98,110 tons of mail and cargo in November, up 15.8 percent over November last year.

China Eastern Airlines said it had carried 5.06 million passengers in November, an increase of 40.3 percent over the same month in 2009. The company’s passenger load factor climbed 2.03 percentage points to 75.74 percent.

China Eastern transported 124,900 tons of mail and cargo in November, 31.5 percent more than in the same period last year. Cargo and mail load factor was 63.16 percent, rising 2.13 points.

Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Airways and its subsidiary Dragonair carried a total of 2.182 million passengers in November, an increase of 8.7 percent over the same month last year.

Passenger load factor fell by 1.5 percentage points to 80.5 percent, while capacity for the month, measured in available seat kilometers, rose by 11.2 percent. For the year to date, the number of passengers rose 11 percent.

The two airlines transported 153,572 tons of cargo and mail last month, up 8.4 percent on November 2009. The cargo and mail load factor decreased 5.2 points to 71.6 percent, while capacity, measured in available cargo/mail ton kilometers, jumped by 21.6 percent. For the year to date, tonnage grew by 18.7 percent and cargo/mail ton kilometers by 23.9 percent.

Cathay Pacific Airways said it will start flying to Abu Dhabi and Chicago next year, and will boost its North American services.

The service to the UAE will be operated four times a week using Airbus A330-300 aircraft and will be initiated on June 2. The flights to Chicago will be operated daily using Boeing 777-300ER and will commence on September 1.

In addition, the company’s New York route will get three more flights a week from March 27 to May 1, 2011, for a total of 24 flights a week, and from May 2 will become a four-times-daily service. Cathay Pacific’s Toronto service will add two more flights a week from May 1, becoming a double-daily service.

Air China Ltd will start flying more often between Vancouver and Beijing from March, it said. Beginning on March 27, the company will offer 12 weekly flights on the route, up from the current 10.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, part of Air France-KLM, said yesterday it will start operating a scheduled service between Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport and Xiamen in southeastern China on March 27, 2011. The route will be operated three times a week using Boeing 777-200ER aircraft and will represent a boost in the number of weekly KLM flights to China to 43.

Taiwanese Eva Airways Corporation has started a weekly service between Jinan in China’s eastern Shandong Province and Taiwan’s Taoyuan International Airport, near Taipei, the Jinan municipal government said in a statement on December 19.
The carrier, its subsidiary Uni Air, and the Shandong Provincial Tourism Administration have also inked a strategic framework collaboration.

The Civil Aviation Department of Hong Kong said on December 20 it had approved an increase in passenger fuel surcharges for January, to be levied by All Nippon Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways and Singapore Airlines. Maximum fuel surcharges will rise by 8 percent to HKD 129 (US$16.60) for short-haul flights and by 10 percent to HKD 621 (US$79.80) for long-haul flights.

Tianjin Airlines has started flying between Tianjin and Ulan Bator, Mongolia, via Hohhot, China Industry Daily News reported. The new service, which was initiated on December 21, marks the company’s first international route. The carrier will provide the service two times a week.

Solar power
Dow Electronic Materials, a division of U.S. Dow Chemical, said it has begun construction of a photovoltaics manufacturing facility in Jiangsu Province in Eastern China. Located on the company’s Zhangjiagang site, the plant is expected to start production by late 2011.

Chinese photovoltaics-maker Astronergy Solar said earlier this month it plans to build a 10 megawatt solar photovoltaic system integrated into the building of a new railway station in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province for US$40.6 million. The project represents the world’s biggest single-building photovoltaic system, the company said. The railway station is scheduled to commence operations by the end of 2011.

The photovoltaic systems will cover 148,000 square meters on the building’s surfaces and its roof. It will produce 9.8 million kilowatts a year and save 8,095 tons of carbon dioxide, 66 tons of sulfur dioxide and 32 tons of other pollutants.

Chinese photovoltaic equipment firm CNPV Solar Power said yesterday it would supply photovoltaic modules to German solar firm Donauer Solartechnik Vertriebs GmbH under a strategic partnership deal.

Under the long-term agreement, CNPV will deliver 40 MWp of PV modules in 2011, 60 MWp in 2012 and 100 MWp in 2013. Donauer Solartechnik is active in wholesale of solar PV and solar thermal products and project development.

Chinese photovoltaic equipment-maker Solarfun Power Holdings said on December 21 it had won two orders to supply 31.4 megawatts of photovoltaic modules in Italy and Spain, and announced the opening of an office in Milan to bolster its Italian business.

Italy is among the company’s high-priority markets in Europe, with Solarfun’s solar installations there estimated to reach 50 megawatts by the end of this year. Installed photovoltaic capacity in the country as a whole is expected to exceed 1,500 megawatts in 2010, Solarfun said.

In August, the company received an order from European green energy firm 9REN Group for 20.4 megawatts of photovoltaic modules for a solar project in Italy, to be ready by the third quarter of 2011. Solarfun has also agreed to supply 11 megawatts of photovoltaic modules to Spanish Gestamp Asetym Solar, to be used for projects in Italy and Spain. The systems will come on stream next summer.

Chinese silicon wafer maker GCL-Poly Energy Holdings on December 23 said it agreed to supply 2,500 megawatts of wafer and polysilicon products to solar cell firm Solarfun Power Holdings.

Under a long-term supplementary product supply agreement, GCL-Poly has to deliver the products in the course of five years, starting in January next year. The company did not disclose the price of the deal but said the contract includes a price adjustment mechanism.

“We expect this to satisfy our requirements for key raw materials on a cost-effective basis, and allow us to continue expanding in scale as we meet our growing customer needs worldwide,” Solarfun CEO Peter Xie said, commenting on the deal.

Wind power
Wind farms developer China Longyuan Power Group expects its wind power capacity to reach 6.5 gigawatts by the end of this year and 30 gigawatts in the next decade, China’s news agency Xinhua writes.

In its five-year plan, the company, which is working on an expansion of its wind power business to the United States, Europe and Australia, sees its wind energy capacity at 11 gigawatts in 2012 and 18 gigawatts in 2015. At the end of November, China Longyuan had a wind capacity of 5.51 gigawatts.

Canadian wind power firm China Wind Power International has secured a US$21 million loan from the Agricultural Development Bank of China to complete the second phase of a 546-megawatt wind power project in China.

The nine-year loan represents the first tranche of a US$49.7 million credit agreement. It bears an interest rate of 6.14 percent. The company has already installed 17 turbines at its five-phase wind farm project, out of 35 planned under the second phase of the development. The wind farm will start operations in 2014.

Ontario-based China Wind Power owns the exclusive rights to a wind power project in Heilongjiang Province in Northeastern China with a demonstrated potential installed capacity of 1,150 megawatts, of which the 546-megawatt capacity is the short-term target.

Chinese Xinjiang Goldwind Science and Technology on December 20 announced that it has struck a 20-year power purchase agreement with U.S. power utility Commonwealth Edison for the output of its 120 megawatt Shady Oaks wind farm in Illinois.

The project, developed by Goldwind’s U.S. arm TianRun Shady Oaks, is to begin operations in 2012.

Xinjiang Goldwind Science and Technology also said it had agreed to sell 49 percent of its unit Damaoqi Tianrun Wind Power to Chinese insurer Ping An for US$ 31.4 million.

Damaoqi Tianrun Wind Power, which builds and operates wind turbine generators, had total assets of US$105 million as of June 30. After the transaction, Xinjiang Goldwind will keep a 51 percent shareholding in the company, while the rest will be owned by China Ping An Trust & Investment Co, a subsidiary of Ping An.

This industry report brief is courtesy of Aii Data Processing.