Japan's largest refiner JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy is now expected to resume full operations at the earthquake-hit 115,000 b/d Osaka refinery in western Japan in about a week, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Tuesday.
In a briefing note to the media, METI said that JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy has started works to resume operations at the Osaka refining facility, but it is estimated it will take about a week to resume full operations.
JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy should not experience any impact on its oil products supply because of a combination of stock withdrawals and product exchanges, METI added.
A JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy official Tuesday declined to comment on the estimated timing of restarting the Osaka refinery.
The Osaka refinery had an automatic shutdown Monday morning, when northern Osaka was rocked by a strong 6.1 magnitude earthquake at 7:58 am (2258 GMT) at a depth of about 13 km, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, adding that no tsunami warning was issued. The magnitude and depth of the earthquake was revised higher from a preliminary estimate of 5.9 and 10 km later Monday.
JXTG currently has around 30% of its refining capacity offline based on its total crude processing capacity of 1.93 million b/d after the latest shutdown at Osaka.
It had already shut a combined 468,000 b/d of its refining capacity for scheduled maintenance, including the Oita refinery in southwestern Japan, Kashima refinery on the east coast and No. 2 CDU at the Kawasaki refinery in Tokyo Bay, S&P Global Platts reported in mid-May.
