Chemical Facilities Affected by March 11 Earthquake in Japan

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources East Asia (Kofu-shi, Japan)--Along with power plants, refineries and metal works, chemical plants have also been greatly affected by last week's 9.0 earthquake in Japan.

Japan has an ethylene production capacity of approximately 7.5 million tons per year, produced at 15 sites throughout the country. However, most production sites have not been running at full capacity. Production throughout 2011 was predicted to fall due to lower demand and a flood of cost-effective product from the Middle East. For information, see March 10, 2011, article - Japanese Ethylene Production to Decline Through 2011.

Five ethylene sites were knocked offline in prefectures directly affected by Friday's earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Approximately 2.6 million metric tonnes of capacity went down, representing about 35% of the country's ethylene capacity. Other chemical facilities, those not concerned with ethylene production, have been affected as well. Facilities affected by Friday's events include:

• Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation (TYO:4188) (Tokyo) - Kashima, Ibaraki, facility
• Maruzen Company Limited (TYO:5982) (Tokyo) - Ichihara, Chiba, facility
• Sumitomo Chemical Company Limited (TYO:4005) (Tokyo) - Ichihara, Chiba facility
• Tonen Chemical Corporation, a subsidiary of TonenGeneral Sekiyu Corporation (TYO:5012) (Tokyo) - Kawasaki, Kanagawa, facility
• JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation (TYO:5001) (Tokyo) - Kawasaki, Kanagawa facility

JX Nippon Oil plans to begin the restart of its Kawasaki facility during the night of Thursday, March 17, and plans to return to normal operations by March 25. Mitsui Chemicals plans to continue recovery of its Kashima facility through its planned second-quarter turnaround; Maruzen plans to begin the restart of its Ichihara facility within the next week. Maruzen has mentioned that any turnarounds scheduled for Ichihara will not be affected. Both Sumitomo and Tonen plan to restart their respective facilities this week, and Mitsubishi plans to restart its Kashima facility after May 5, mentioning that the turnaround scheduled for the facility will occur as planned.

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