The Chiba plant of Cosmo Oil located in the city of Ishihara was badly hit by fire and explosion caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake which struck on March 11 of last year. On January 12 of this year, they again started up some of the refinery facilities. This refinery is a production center for liquid carbon dioxide and dry ice in the Kanto areas and along with other refineries will be setting to go into operations, it will appear that the production of liquid carbon dioxide and dry ice will also be recovering.

According to Cosmo Oil, the reason for the restarting of some of the facilities at this time was that on December 27 of last year the #10 Direct Heavy Oil Desulfurization Plant and the #20 Hydrogen Generation Plant, as well as the indirect desulfurization plant.

Last summer, the Kanto Area was afflicted with a severe shortage of liquid carbon dioxide and dry ice due to the damage and disruption of the sources of these items in the areas around Tokyo (including Chiba Prefecture). The situation was such that temporarily supplies rushed to the area from Korea. The suppliers of liquid carbon dioxide and dry ice too have also been waiting for a quick restarting of the production facilities.