Japan's capacity outage due to the autumn refinery turnaround season has fallen to 465,000 b/d or 12% of the national total after Seibu Oil, a Showa Shell group company, restarted the sole 120,000 b/d crude distillation unit at its Yamaguchi refinery, S&P Global Platts' analysis of industry information showed Wednesday.
With the restart of the Yamaguchi CDU in western Japan after scheduled turnaround, the highest point of Japan's autumn turnaround season, when a combined 585,000 b/d or 15% of total 3.82 million b/d refining capacity was offline, is over.
Japan's refining capacity utilization rate has since gone up from the lowest point of 75.7% against the installed refining capacity in the week to October 1, according to the Petroleum Association of Japan data.
PAJ will release its weekly oil stocks and output statistics for October 2-8 at 0300 GMT Thursday, instead of Wednesday, because of a public holiday in Japan on Monday.
While Toa Oil, another Showa Shell group company, plans to shut its sole 70,000 b/d Keihin refinery in Tokyo Bay in October for maintenance, TonenGeneral expects to restart the sole 132,000 b/d CDU at its export-oriented Wakayama refinery in western Japan around the end of October after completing a scheduled turnaround.
Japan's largest refiner JX Nippon Oil & Energy plans to restart its 270,000 b/d Negishi refinery over two CDUs in Tokyo Bay on October 31, which will be followed by Cosmo Oil's restart of the 63,000 b/d No. 5 CDU at the Yokkaichi refinery in central Japan on November 2.
