MOSCOW (MRC) -- Japan's largest refiner ENEOS (formerly known as JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy), Japan's biggest oil refiner, has restarted its Sendai refinery in northeast Japan, according to MarketScreener with reference to Eneos' statement on an update of its refinery operations.
This 145,000 b/d refinery was hit by an earthquake on 1 May, 2021, and resumed production on 18 May.
Besides, on 18 May, the company shut down its Sakai refinery in western Japan for maintenance, with a restart scheduled for June.
As MRC informed previously, ENEOS also took off-stream its Sendai refinery after the strong earthquake offshore Fukushima late Feb. 13, 2021. This refinery was brought back on-line in the first half of April, 2021.
We remind that ENEOS Corporation restarted its naphtha cracker in Kawasaki on 1 February 2021. The company shut this cracker with an annual capacity of 515,000 tons/year of ethylene, 300,000 tons/year of propylene, and 105,000 tons/year of butadiene on 4 December, 2020, for repairment after a technical issue reported at the butadiene separation unit and initially planned to resume operations on 28 December, 2020.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 576,270 tonnes in the first three month of 2021, up by 4% year on year. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) shipments increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 410,890 tonnes in January-March 2021, up by 56% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
Japan's largest refiner JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy was renamed ENEOS Corporation on 25 June, 2020, as part of a wider re-organization of the parent company JXTG Holdings. The move, which also involved renaming the parent company to ENEOS Holdings upon approval at its annual shareholders meeting in June 2020, comes as it strives to be a more comprehensive energy and materials company under its 2040 vision announced in May, 2019. JXTG Holdings was formed as a result of a merger between JX Holdings and TonenGeneral in April 2017. This followed the establishment of JX Holdings as a result of the merger between Nippon Oil and Nippon Mining Holdings in April 2010.
MRC