Around 5:40 a.m. on April 16, 2006, an explosion and fire occurred in the vicinity of vacuum gas oil desulfurization unit in Chiba oil refinery (location: 2 Goikaigan Ichihara, Chiba, Executive chief: Takashi Yajima) of Cosmo Oil Co., Ltd. (Head office: 1-1-1, Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Capital: 62.4 billion yen, President: Yaichi Kimura).
We would like to offer our sincere apologies for all the trouble and distress this incident has caused.
The circumstances at 7:00 p.m. on April 17 are as follows.
| Circumstances on April 17 | The Fire Department and the Police conducted an on-site investigation starting at 9:00 a.m. and finishing at 5:00 p.m. Further on-site investigation will be conducted under the instruction of the authorities from tomorrow. |
|---|---|
| Facilities shut down for safety | The vacuum gas oil desulfurization unit and the hydrogen production unit No.1 have been shut down by order of the Fire Department since immediately after the accident. We also took the autonomous decision to shut down the topping unit No.2, vacuum distillation unit No. 2, and hydrogenerated desulfurization unit No.4. |
* We will continuously and fully cooperate with the relevant authorities and make our utmost efforts to identify the cause of the fire and to take measures against future reoccurrence.
