The Japanese oil refinery Eneos Holdings, formerly JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy, intends to accelerate its transformation into a supplier of low-carbon energy and materials. The company plans to close refineries, and to transform them into chemical refineries or energy platforms for electric power, hydrogen and others. To this end, Eneos could shut down the Kashima refinery (197 kb/d) or the Mizushima refinery (320 kb/d). In May 2020, the company pledged to spend JPY1,500bn (US$14bn) over the 2020-2023 period to drive the change.
In July 2019, JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy decided to close its 115 kb/d refinery jointly owned with PetroChina in Osaka (Japan) in October 2020, citing decreasing demand for oil products in Japan and fiercer competition in Asia. The JXTG-PetroChina (51/49) joint venture agreement between the two companies will expire in September 2020, and the refinery site will be converted to an asphalt-fired power plant.
Eneos Holdings is the largest oil group in Japan, with a refining capacity of nearly 2 mb/d; it controls half of the gasoline market and operates more than 14,000 retail outlets in the country. The company was created in 2017 from the merger between JX Nippon Oil & Energy and Tonen/General (3 refineries with a total capacity of 0.5 mb/d).
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