Earthquake leads to emergency shutdown of Idemitsu Kosan's Tokuyama refinery and petrochem complex

18-Mar-14

A 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck off the island of Kyushu in Japan on March 14. This has resulted in an emergency shutdown of Idemitsu Kosan Co. Ltd.'s Tokuyama 120000 bpd refinery and petrochemical complex. All the equipment at the refinery and adjoining petrochemical plant, producing 623,000 tpa ethylene, was shuttered following the earthquake, where an assessment is currently underway. The ethylene units caught fire more than two hours after the quake, but the fire was put out soon after. The earthquake did not impact operations of other refineries in western Japan run by JX Nippon Oil & Energy , Cosmo Oil Co, Taiyo Oil Co and Seibu Oil Co (part of the Showa Shell Sekiyu group), and also of naphtha crackers run by Showa Denko and Asahi Kasei.