According to directions given by the Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency, METI, and the Commercial and Industrial Labor Dept., Chiba Prefecture, Cosmo Oil Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Capital: 62.4 billion yen; President: Yaichi Kimura) investigated the causes of the improper procedures taken in 1995, planned preventive measures, checked whether our procedures and inspections have been taken in accordance with the High-Pressure Gas Safety Law since April 1997, and finally announced the resulting report yesterday. The Nuclear and Industry Safety Agency, METI today handed down administrative penalties to all of our refineries as follows.
| Chiba Refinery | has lost the certifications for completion inspection and safety inspection |
|---|---|
| Yokkaichi Refinery | has lost the certification for completion inspection |
| Sakai Refinery | has lost the certification for completion inspection |
| Sakaide Refinery | has lost the certification for completion inspection |
In addition to the above, we announce that the authorities concerned have concluded that 12 of our procedures did not conform to regulations or standards.
We fully understand that compliance and corporate social responsibilities are strictly required of companies and accept these penalties with grave regret. We would like to repeat our sincere apologies for causing this situation.
We believe that these oversights occurred due to our corporate culture, which gave priority to production rather than to compliance, and ultimately resulted in these severe penalties. Accordingly, we will restructure our safety and control system, strengthen the check functions at the manufacturing departments of our refineries, and improve the awareness of corporate ethics from a company-wide point of view. Moreover, we will take preventive measures as soon as possible and do our best to recover our credibility.
We will be handing down strict penalties to the staff members concerned according to our corporate rules in consideration of the administrative penalties we received for our oversights.
