Idemitsu Kosan restarts ethylene unit, permanently idles crude unit

Idemitsu Kosan Co. Ltd. has restarted operations at its Tokuyama petrochemical complex in Japan after an earthquake off the island of Kyushu resulted in the shutdown of all units at the facility on Mar. 14 (OGJ Online, Mar. 14, 2014).

Operations resumed at the complex’s 623,000-tonnes/year ethylene unit on Mar. 23, with other units at the plant scheduled to continue to come on line in sequence, the company said.

But the company will not restart crude oil processing operations at the complex following the earthquake, including the refinery’s 120,000-b/d crude unit and associated equipment, Idemitsu Kosan said.

The company said its decision to not resume Tokuyama’s crude oil operations follows Idemitsu Kosan’s previously announced plans to permanently shutter Tokuyama’s crude unit on Mar. 31 (OGJ Online, Dec. 3, 2012).