Japan's JX says cuts crude refining target due to "problem"
TOKYO (Reuters) -- Japan's JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp has cut the amount of crude oil it expects to refine in February by about 4% from an earlier target due to unspecified problems with secondary units at multiple refineries.
A spokesman for the country's top oil refiner on Monday said it was reducing its refining target for the month to 1.07 MMbpd.
He added that the firm was revising up its oil product export outlook for February by nearly 4% to 189,000 bpd as it would ship fuel oil in addition to middle distillates because the refinery problems meant it was unable to turn some product into gasoline.
Industry paper Nenryo Yushi earlier reported that JX was facing problems at three facilities in eastern Japan: Negishi, Sendai and Kashima.
Two of the refineries were having problems with their Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) units, the paper said.
The problems with secondary units occurred sometime in February and refining curbs could continue through March, the spokesman added.
The company is set to transfer products from other refineries and to buy in the market to offset the decline in refining, he said.
Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Joseph Radford
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