Japanese refiner Idemitsu Kosan plans to process 2.96-mil kl of crude in March, up 16 per cent from the same period of 2005, a company spokesman said.

The planned March throughput translates to an operating rate of 93.8 per cent, based on Idemitsu's total installed capacity of 640,000 b/d.
The spokesman attributed the year-on-year rise to lower operating rates at the company's Hokkaido refinery in northern Japan as well as to the shutdown of its 120,000 b/d Tokuyama in western Japan for two weeks last March.
The sole 140,000 b/d crude distillation unit at Hokkaido had resumed operations in early August 2004 after an 11-month outage following a fire, but ran at only 60 per cent –70 per cent of capacity until September 2005, when it ramped up to 100 per cent rates.
Idemitsu operates the Hokkaido refinery in northern Japan, the Aichi refinery in central Japan, a 220,000 b/d Chiba refinery in eastern Japan and a 120,000 b/d Tokuyama refinery.