Plants, Shops in Quake-Hit Hokkaido Resume Operations

September 11, 2018

Sapporo- An increasing number of factories and shops in Hokkaido have resumed operations, after the northernmost Japan prefecture was recently hit by a powerful earthquake and subsequent massive power outages, while Hokkaido Electric Power Co. <9509> is asking its customers to save power consumption by 20 pct during daytime.

The 6.7-magnitude quake, which mainly jolted the Iburi region in southwestern Hokkaido on Thursday, measured up to 7, the highest level on the Japanese seismic intensity scale.

Sapporo Breweries Ltd. restarted production at and shipments from its plant in the city of Eniwa.

Of the factory's three lines, however, only one making such items as canned beer was brought back online. The remaining lines for producing bottled beer are kept offline in light of energy-saving, because they consume a large amount of electricity, according to the Sapporo Holdings Ltd.  unit.

"We expect to keep this production format at the Eniwa plant as long as the power-saving request is in place," an official at the brewer's public relations department said.

Confectionery maker Calbee Inc. resumed operations at local plants in stages, including one for potato chips in the city of Chitose.

The company is studying specific measures in response to the energy-saving request.

Toyota Motor Hokkaido Inc., a fully owned unit of leading Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. , plans to take measures such as switching the timing of production of some automotive components, as part of efforts to curb its peak electricity consumption.

The subsidiary, based in the city of Tomakomai, is also considering increasing the share of production at night, officials of the company said. Toyota Motor Hokkaido makes transmissions and other auto parts.

Meanwhile, Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp.'s  steelworks in the city of Muroran is supplying electricity produced by its in-house power generation equipment to other parties, meeting a call by Hokkaido Electric.

Paper producer Oji Holdings Corp. is also providing electricity generated at a resumed factory to outside users.

Many convenience stores have restarted operations. They are lowering lighting levels during daytime as much as possible while continuing to light up their store signboards at night for security reasons.

A Marui Imai department store in Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, is reducing lighting at sales floors and suspending the operations of more than half of its elevators.

Sapporo resident Keiko Nakazawa, 69, who visited the store, showed understanding for these measures. She said: "I don't feel any inconvenience at all. I'm in support of companies cooperating to save power."

But an official of a parts maker said, "We need to keep some equipment active around the clock," adding that it is difficult for the company to restart operations unless power supplies are fully restored. Jiji Press