UPDATE 1-Nippon Oil plans Jan crude refining +10 pct yr/yr

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By Osamu Tsukimori

TOKYO, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Nippon Oil Corp. (5001.T) plans to refine 4.85 million kilolitres (984,000 barrels per day) of crude oil in January to meet domestic demand, up 10 percent from a year earlier, a company executive said on Wednesday.

The refining volumes are up sharply from January 2007, when the weather was unusually warm for winter, Masahito Nakamura, the company's senior vice president, told reporters.

The move also comes as Japan's inventories of kerosene and gasoline remain below year-earlier levels.

Nippon Oil's December crude refining volume for domestic demand was estimated at 4.78 million kl, down 1 percent from the year-earlier period but higher than its original plan to refine 4.77 million kl in the month.

Nippon Oil said planned maintenance of a 127,000 barrels per day crude distillation unit (CDU) at its Marifu refinery in western Japan has been scheduled between mid-March and mid-April.

The company's refining estimates exclude oil processed to produce electricity for sale to utilities, and petrochemicals such as naphtha. They also exclude crude refined to supply petroleum products under contract to Chinaoil and Japan's Idemitsu Kosan Co Ltd (5019.T).

Including the volume processed for all of these, Nippon Oil's overall refining volumes for January will be 5.29 million kl, up 10 percent year-on-year, while its overall volume for December was estimated at 5.24 million kl, little changed from a year earlier.