Chubu Electric to buy more LNG in 2012/13

Chubu Electric Power will buy 13 million tonnes of LNG for the year to March 2013.

This is approximately the same amount it purchased in the past year, while it does not yet know when its sole nuclear plant will restart.

Chubu, Japan's third-biggest utility, shut its 3,617 megawatt nuclear plant in a quake-prone area in Hamaoka in May last year, following a rare government request on concerns it could be hit by an earthquake like the one that triggered the Fukushima disaster a year ago.

Chubu has since stepped up power generation at fossil-fuel power plants to meet demand in the central Japan area, where several auto and electronics parts factories are located, pushing up its LNG imports for 2011/12 from an original plan for 8.4 million tonnes.