June 6, 2012:

Japanese oil refiner Cosmo Oil Co said on Wednesday it expected to resume full crude oil refining operations at its quake-hit 220,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Chiba refinery, east of Tokyo, when the restoration of fire-damaged liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanks is completed in the spring of 2013. The Chiba refinery can process up to 80 percent of capacity after the fire affected 17 of the plant's 25 LPG tanks following the devastating earthquake of March 2011. The company moved forward to spring its schedule for new LPG tanks from the original summer date. The tank replacement should cost about 10 billion yen ($127 million), it has estimated. A spokesman said the company might not build 17 new LPG tanks to replace all the damaged ones, adding that it would take into account such factors as oil supply and demand and its production plans before deciding on the number of replacements.

The Chiba refinery's main units are the two crude distillation units (CDUs), which have restarted more than a year after the magnitude 9.0 March 2011 earthquake. The 120,000-bpd No.2 CDU restarted operations on March 30, while the other 100,000-bpd No.1 CDU was restarted late in April. The No.2 CDU has been undergoing a maintenance shutdown from May 3 to mid- to late July. The turnaround for the other No.1 CDU has been set for Sept. 22 to Nov. 16.

By Rueters