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Cosmo Oil manufactures oil products in four oil refineries: Chiba, Yokkaichi, Sakai and Sakaide. Crude oil from oil-producing countries is transported by large-sized tankers and refined into such oil products as gasoline. Crude oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons with a wide range of boiling points. The heart of the refinery is the Topping Unit; it is a unit which heats the crude oil, creating a form of oil steam and then separates by distillation into such commodities as liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), naphtha *, kerosene, jet fuel, diesel fuel and heavy fuel oil. In the refineries, a wide variety of safeguards and procedures are used to ensure safe, efficient and environmentally friendly production.
The market for heavy fuel oil is declining and the heavy fuel oil is often used in a Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit to manufacture gasoline products with higher added value. Each refinery produces gasoline, diesel fuel and kerosene in response to the needs of the market. Cosmo Oil Group carries out the production and sales of the raw materials of petrochemicals (aromatic hydrocarbons and solvents) and is working on expanding the area it services in response to the increased demand of the Asian region.
Oil refining process (Sakai Refinery)
*The heavy oil cracking unit (coker) used in the new process indicated by the red arrows is scheduled to commence operation in fiscal 2010.
Coker (heavy oil cracking unit)
A new unit built at the Sakai Refinery of Cosmo Oil (with a capital investment of some ¥100 billion) scheduled to start operation during fiscal year 2010.
In addition to the Coker unit, a Coker Distillate hydrodesulfurization unit is also newly being built. These units, when completed, will be used to produce naphtha, jet fuel and diesel fuel from an asphalt fraction.
These efforts are expected to provide benefits, such as cost reductions in the refining process by using heavy crude oil (by taking advantage of heavy-lighter crude oil price gaps, or price gaps between heavy crude oil and light crude oil aimed at maintaining the same distillate production rates as conventionally by using lower-priced heavy crude oil) and better responses to structural changes in oil product demand in Japan and higher refining margins with a shift to the production of intermediate fractions from that of a heavy oil fraction (by taking advantage of light-heavy distillate product price gaps, or price gaps between oil product and heavy fuel oil aimed at improving rates of producing more highly value-added lighter distillates), thereby improving profitability at the company.
<Outline of the New Facilities to Introduce>
- (1) Coker unit
- - Processing capacity of 25,000 BD
- (2) Coker Distillate hydrodesulfurization unit
- - Processing capacity of 42,000 BD
<Outline of Production Capacity Expected>
- Naphtha
- : 250,000 kl/year
- Jet fuel
- : 700,000 kl/year
- Diesel fuel
- : 350,000 kl/year
- Petroleum cokes
- : 400,000 tonnes/year
