Nippon Oil Shuts Mizushima Refinery Unit; Negishi Plant in Oct.

By Yuji Okada and Shigeru Sato

Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Nippon Oil Corp., Japan's largest petroleum refiner, shut a crude distillation unit at its Mizushima refinery in western Japan for regular maintenance.

The 140,000 barrel-a-day No. 3 unit went offline yesterday and is due to restart on Oct. 1, a Nippon Oil spokesman said today by telephone from Tokyo, declining to be named because of company policy.

At its Negishi refinery near Tokyo, Nippon Oil plans to shut a 150,000 barrel-a-day No. 4 crude distillation unit on Oct. 1 for regular inspections and maintenance. The unit is slated to resume operation on Oct. 19.

The Mizushima refinery is located in Kurashiki City, Okayama Prefecture.

To contact the reporters on this story: Shigeru Sato in Tokyo at ssato10@bloomberg.net; Yuji Okada in Tokyo at yokada6@bloomberg.net.