Typhoon Melor delays refinery shipments in Japan

08 October 2009 05:06 [Source: ICIS news]

By Gabriela Wheeler

YOKOHAMA (ICIS news)--A powerful typhoon struck Japan on Thursday, halting tranportation, closing production plants and disrupting shipments from refineries.

Typhoon Melor made landfall in the central and eastern parts of the country at about 5:45am local time, bringing with it heavy rains and sustained winds of around 100 miles/hour (mph) (155 km/h), according to a BBC weather report.

Residents of Aichi, Mie, Kochi, Osaka, and Nara prefectures were told to evacuate ahead of the storm, and schools were closed on Thursday in many areas of the country, including Tokyo.

Sources said several car factories were closed and some refinery shipments were delayed because of the typhoon.

Toyota Motor Corp and Suzuki Motor Corp halted operations at their car plants for a day on Thursday.

Nippon Oil Corp, Japan Energy Corp and Idemitsu Kosan are among the refiners that halted oil shipments temporarily, sources said.

Meawnwhile, operations of chemical plants located west of the main island of Honshu have not been affected by the typhoon, sources said.

Nippon Shokubai’s 35,000 tonnes/year maleic anhydride plant in Himeji, Hyogo prefecture, for example, was running at normal rates, said a company source.

“Traffic is in chaos now but the typhoon is moving up north away from our production bases so there has been minimal impact on our operations,” said a company official at Showa Denko's ethyl acetate operations at Shin-Nanyo in the Yamaguchi prefecture.

Showa Denko has a 150,000 mt/yr ethyl acetate plant at the site.

Typhoon Melor is the 18th typhoon of the season and the first to make a direct hit on the country since September 2007.

With additional reporting from Helen Lee

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By: Gabriela Wheeler
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