Nippon Oil

JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation
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Type	Public KK
Traded as	TYO: 5001
Industry	Oil and gasoline
Founded	1888
Headquarters	Tokyo, Japan
Key people	Fumiaki Watari, Chairman; Shinji Nishio, President
Products	Petroleum; Petrochemical; Fuel
Revenue	¥ 7,523.990 billion JPY (FY 2008)
Net income	¥ 148.306 billion JPY (FY 2008)
Employees	13,290 (2007)
Website	www.eneos.co.jpwww.eneos.us

Not to be confused with Eunos.

File:ENEOS.jpg

An ENEOS service station in Japan

The Nippon Oil Corporation (新日本石油株式会社, Shin Nihon Sekiyu Kabushiki-gaisha^?, TYO: 5001), or NOC or Shin-Nisseki (新日石) is a Japanese petroleum company. Its businesses include the exploration, importation, and refining of crude oil; the manufacture and sale of petroleum products, including fuels and lubricants; and other energy-related activities.

Its products are sold under the brand name ENEOS, which is also the name used for its service stations. It is the largest oil company in Japan, and in recent years it has been expanding its operations in other countries.

History

The company was established 1888 as the "Nippon Oil" (日本石油, Nihon Sekiyu^?), "Nisseki" (日石) for short. In 1999, the company merged with and absorbed the former "Mitsubishi Oil" (三菱石油, Mitsubishi Sekiyu^?). The merged company was called "Nippon Mitsubishi Oil" (日石三菱, Nisseki Mitsubishi^?) until 2002, when it adopted its present name.

In late 2009, Nippon Oil announced its most recent merger activity. An excerpt from the press release is attached...

''"Nippon Oil Corporation and Nippon Mining Holdings, Inc. have been working towards their business integration based on the business integration agreement entered into on October 30, 2009 and the share transfer plan for the establishment of the holding company, assuming the approval of the general meetings of shareholders of Nippon Oil and Nippon Mining and of the regulatory authorities.

As the Companies have agreed upon the operational structure of oil refineries, manufacturing facilities and branch offices of JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation to be established on July 1, 2010 (“JX Nippon Oil & Energy,” a wholly owned petroleum refining and marketing business company of JX Holdings, Inc. to be established on April 1, 2010) and the branding to be used by JX Nippon Oil & Energy..."''

Worldwide operations

The company has world wide locations including JX Nippon Oil & Energy USA Inc in Itasca, Illinois, Torrance, California, and Nippon Oil Lubricants (America), LLC, in Childersburg, Alabama. ENEOS is JX Group's corporate brand. They have brought their premium brand motor oil ENEOS and SUSTINA into the United States recently. The product line includes the extremely difficult to formulate 0W-50 viscosity oil. New line of premium full synthetic motor oil SUSTINA is now available in the United States.

NOC employs over 4,222 people with additional employees from oversea divisions, and operates the following refineries throughout Japan:

Muroran Refinery (Nippon Petroleum Refining Co., Ltd.)
Sendai Refinery (NPRC)
Yokohama Refinery (NPRC)
Negishi Refinery (NPRC)
Mizushima Refinery (NPRC)
Osaka Refinery (NPRC)
Marifu Refinery (NPRC)

Nippon Oil Exploration also owns a 5% share of Syncrude, a Canadian oil sands mining company, through its fully owned subsidiary Mocal Energy.^[1]

The company also has technical collaboration with Tide Water Oil Co., an Indian petroleum products manufacturer. Superior quality lubricants under the brand name ENEOS are manufactured and marketed in India by Tide Water Oil Co. in India.^[2]

2011 earthquake and tsunami

On 11 March 2011, a 145,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Sendai was set ablaze by a magnitude 9 earthquake.^[3] Workers were evacuated,^[4] but tsunami warnings hindered efforts to extinguish the fire until 14 March, when officials planned to do so.^[3]

Environmental record

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logotype of Nippon Oil

While developing the Rang Don Oil Field and Helang Gas Field NOEX, part of the Nippon Oil Corporation, conducted environmental impact assessments. These assessments helped them implement management plans based on the results of the assessments, specifically, how to reduce the impact of the fields on surrounding sea areas.^[5]

In 2005 Nippon Oil and Ebara-Ballard announced they were going to start field testing a 1 kW household proton-exchange membrane fuel cell system that uses coal oil as fuel. It was the world's first household test with the system. The system achieves a greater power-generation efficiency than normal heating. The system can operate in temperatures as low as -10 deg C.^[6]

In 2007 Nippon Oil was the recipient of the Nippon Keidanren Chairman’s Prize in recognition of its achievements in a number of areas. They were the first in the Japanese petroleum industry to achieve a zero emission status at their refineries. They are also developing fuel cell systems as well as producing and selling sulfur-free fuel. The Rang Dong Oil Field in also one of the biggest CO2 reduction projects in the world. The project utilizes associated gas produced along with crude oil for additional energy production.^[7]

Connection to human rights abuses

The construction of the Yetagun pipeline in Myanmar has been linked to 'severe human rights abuses' by Burmese troops. The company stated it 'was not aware of such abuses.'However critics claim that such foreign investment by Nippon Oil and other multinationals: 'provides a crucial source of support to the junta, allowing it to ignore demands that it return Burma to civilian rule and end human rights abuses.' [1]

Sponsorship

Nippon Oil was formerly a sponsor of the Honda Racing F1 Team and is a current sponsor of the F.C. Tokyo football club. It also sponsors other motor sports teams, such as Team Lexus LeMans ENEOS SC430 in the Japanese Super GT series in the GT500 class. In the late 1980s and early 1990s JSPC, it sponsored the Trust Racing Team Porsche.^[8]