Japan's refinery outage fell to a combined 460,000 b/d, or 12% of refining capacity as JX Nippon Oil & Energy restarted the sole 136,000 b/d crude distillation unit at its Oita refinery on Saturday after completing scheduled turnaround, S&P Global Platts' analysis of industry information showed Monday.
With the restart of the Oita CDU, the highest point of Japan's peak turnaround season -- when a combined 596,000 b/d, or 16%, of total 3.82 million b/d refining capacity was offline -- is over.
On June 24, Cosmo Oil plans to restart the 120,000 b/d No. 2 CDU at its Chiba refinery after completing maintenance, while TonenGeneral aims to restart the 180,000 b/d CDU at its 258,000 b/d Kawasaki refinery in Tokyo Bay late June after completing the turnaround.
Taiyo Oil will shut the 88,000 b/d CDU at its sole 118,000 b/d Kikuma refinery in western Japan on June 30 for scheduled maintenance. The restart is scheduled for July 30.
Idemitsu Kosan shut the sole 160,000 b/d CDU at its Hokkaido refinery on June 11 for about a month.
