Upon being accused of ramping up imports of Russian naphtha since 2024, Formosa Petrochemical on Wednesday said all purchases comply with regulations and pledged to fully adhere to any stricter rules that may be introduced.

A joint report by the Environmental Rights Foundation (ERF), the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), Russian environmental group Ecodefense, and Germany’s Urgewald found that Taiwan has become the world’s largest buyer of Russian naphtha and continues to import Russian coal.

DPP Legislators Puma Shen (沈伯洋) and Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷), CREA Europe and Russia policy lead Isaac Levi, Ecodefense founder Vladimir Slivyak, and ERF Corporate Accountability and International Affairs Director Sun Hsin-hsan (孫興瑄) attended the report’s release at the NTU Alumni Hall in Taipei on Wednesday. They said Taiwan’s naphtha imports had generated US$1.7 billion in tax revenues for the Kremlin and warned that reliance on Russian fossil fuels threatens both Taiwan’s semiconductor industry and its ties with global allies.

At the press conference, environmental groups singled out Formosa Petrochemical. They noted that state-run CPC Corporation stopped importing Russian naphtha in 2024, but Formosa increased its purchases, with 90 percent of its feedstock now coming from Russia compared with 9 percent before the war.

In its statement, Formosa said all naphtha is procured through open tender without specifying country of origin. Suppliers must comply with international sanctions and EU CN27101290 rules, and neither counterparties nor vessels may appear on the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list. The company said the higher share of Russian naphtha reflected market conditions rather than procurement strategy, adding it would immediately comply if new international rules or a Taiwan government ban were imposed.