What happened

A fire broke out early Tuesday afternoon on 2 July 2024 at Idemitsu Kosan's Chiba refinery complex in Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo, specifically at the site's lubricating-oil production facility rather than its main crude distillation unit. The local fire department received reports of hazardous materials on fire together with oil leakage. One person was believed to have been injured. A company spokesperson said it was not immediately known whether the refinery's roughly 190,000-barrel-per-day crude distillation unit continued to operate uninterrupted during the incident. No cause had been identified in the reporting reviewed, and no broader production-halt figure for the refinery as a whole was confirmed.

When cited sources give different casualty, damage or spill figures for this event, they’re reported side by side above rather than merged into one number. See how confidence levels work.