As the world awakes, Japan discloses another round of good news/bad news about the Fukushima crisis. The good news: Reactors 5 and 6 went into stable condition on Sunday, after a successful cold shutdown, authorities said. The reactors at the power plant went into cold shutdown following restoration of cooling functions late Saturday. Alas, 5 and 6 were never the issue to begin with. The same came not be said about reactors 1 through 4, where the bad news comes from this morning. According to the Japan Times, a risky venting of Reactor 3, which saw its pressure rising yet again, was being considered, which would see another release of radioactive gas into the environment. "Pressure within the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was rising at one point and Tepco considered releasing more radioactive gas into the environment to avert serious damage to the containment vessel, the nuclear safety agency said Sunday afternoon. Tokyo Electric Power Co. had considered releasing the contaminated steam directly into the environment, not through a "suppression pool" as it did earlier in the crisis. The pressure needs to be lowered to protect the structural integrity of the reactor, and the first step is to open the valve on a pipe connected to the suppression pool. By going through the suppression pool, the reactor's gas would liquefy and thus lower the pressure." And here is where the recent Operation Irrigation is now backfiring: "But if the pool is already filled with water, a valve on the reactor itself would need to be opened and the radiation level of the released gas would be higher than with the first method, explained Hidehiko Nishiyama of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. "Without water, there would be more radioactive substances in the gas released into the environment."" In other words, the attempt (which some say is futile) to fill the containment pool with water is about to lead to another round of irradiation of the environment. And while all that is going on, here is what the already certain chain of downstream events is going to look like for the region, for Japan, and for the world.

From Reuters, the following is a roundup of the effect on the energy and commodities sector of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck the northeast coast of Japan.

UTILITIES

Japan saw some success in its race to avert disaster at a tsunami-damaged power plant, though minor radiation leaks underlined perils from the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

Japan may have reached a turning point in winning its week-long battle to prevent a massive radiation leak when it succeeded in connecting a power transmission line to the disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Japan is considering whether to halt sales of food products from near a crippled nuclear plant because of contamination by a radioactive element which can pose a short-term health risk, the U.N. atomic agency said.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed freeing up energy for Japan by increasing gas supplies to Europe and offered Japanese companies a slice of Siberia's gas industry.

Japan has raised the severity rating of the nuclear crisis to level 5 from 4 on the seven-level INES international scale, putting it on a par with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979.

Power blackouts can be avoided in the Tokyo area if demand stays at the current level, the trade ministry said.

TEPCO has announced rolling blackouts after its power generation was cut.

Japanese utility Tohoku Electric declares force majeure on its near-term thermal coal shipments due to port damage.

REFINERIES

Japan's demand for oil, refined products and gas will increase in the medium term, but this will not have a significant impact on global supply and demand, Saudi Aramco CEO Khalid al-Falih told Reuters.

Showa Shell Sekiyu KK said on Friday that it has started full output at its four group refineries as part of efforts to ease a severe supply shortage after a powerful quake hit northeast Japan a week ago.

Showa Shell, 35 percent owned by Royal Dutch Shell and 15 percent by Saudi Aramco, said its four group refineries with total capacity of 655,000 barrels per day have been making both surface and marine shipments.

JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp, an oil refining unit of JX Holdings , boosts oil product output at two refineries in western Japan by 30,000 barrels per day in the wake of a supply shortage in the east of the country.

It is also taking other emergency measures, including importing oil from South Korea, buying from other refiners and cancelling exports.

Long lines have been forming at gasoline stations in Tokyo while many JX Nippon stations have been forced to close after running out of fuel.

Oil product output in Japan will recover to 3.4 million barrels per day by the end of March, a level above domestic demand, as idled refineries resume operations, said an oil industry body.

The government has asked 13 refineries in operation in West Japan to boost their running ratio to help ease the supply shortage.

JX Holdings is in talks with South Korea and China on oil products imports to help Japan meet its energy needs.

AOC Holdings says its refiner Fuji Oil Co has increased runs at the two fluid catalytic cracking units at its 140,000 bpd Sodegaura refinery after briefly reducing operations after the earthquake .

Three Japan-bound naphtha shipping fixtures from the Middle East, totalling 205,000 tonnes, fails to be completed due to the shutdown of several Japanese crackers.

Valero Energy said it is ready to supply refined products, such as gasoline and diesel, from its U.S. West Coast refineries to Japan.

JX Holdings says the refinery of subsidiary Kashima Oil Co remains shut.

JX Holdings declares force majeure on its refined product supplies as its stocks are depleted and distributions disrupted. The company is working to boost output at its refineries that are still operating and diverting products to domestic use instead of exports to meet a supply shortfall.

Maruzen Petrochemical Co Ltd shuts its sole naphtha cracker in Chiba, east of Tokyo, with capacity to produce 480,000 tonnes per year of ethylene.

Kyokuto Petroleum has restarted its 175,000 barrels per day (bpd) Chiba refinery.

JX Holdings shuts its 404,000 tonnes per year Kawasaki naphtha cracker near Tokyo.

Japan's Exxon Mobil group refiner TonenGeneral Sekiyu KK prepares to restart its 335,000 barrels per day Kawasaki plant, near Tokyo.

Mitsubishi Chemical halts two naphtha crackers at its Kashima plant after a power outage.

METALS

China's term shipments for refined copper from Japan may stay normal in March and April, though May and June remain a question mark after a massive quake forced some Japanese copper producers to stop production

Toho Zinc Co stops operations at its 139,200 tonnes per year Annaka zinc smelter and Onahama plant, which is used to treat zinc for smelting.

Japanese steel mills divert metallurgical coal cargoes due to plant outages. Possible destinations for the coal include South Korea and China.

Production at JFE Steel Corp's 10-million-tonne per year Higashi Nihon plant is still halted due to power outages. JFE Steel is the world's No. 5 steelmaker. Fourth-ranked Nippon Steel has suspended operations at one small plant.

Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd , Japan's No. 3 steelmaker, says production at its main Kashima plant in Ibaraki prefecture remains suspended.

Sumitomo Metal's main Kashima plant has a fire in a gas holder, which has been extinguished but the company says it does not know yet when the plant will resume operations. Sumitomo Metal has a total capacity of 14 million tonnes a year and the Kashima plant produces 8.3 million tonnes.

Nippon Steel's small Kamaishi plant, which had produced 60,000 tonnes a month of downstream steel products, remains shut. The company has resumed operations at a small seamless steel plant in Tokyo after briefly shutting it on Monday due to rolling power outages.

PORTS

Shipping companies are confident of keeping goods moving through Japan's ports, using spare capacity at the largest to deal with cargo displaced from those devastated in last week's earthquake and tsunami.

Japanese ports handled 19 million units -- measured in twenty foot boxes -- of container shipments last year. As much as 7 percent of that had been shut off after the quake and tsunami hit northern Japan.

Two piers at the medium-sized Onahama seaport in Fukushima prefecture are now available for 30,000 tonne vessels.

Two smaller seaports further up the coast, Miyako in Iwate prefecture and Hachinohe in Aomori prefecture, will restore functions by the end of Thursday.

Japan's Sendai Gas says it will likely take more than a month to restart its Shinminato liquefied natural gas facility. All the remaining LNG terminals in Japan are in operation.

Three Japan-bound naphtha shipping fixtures from the Middle East, totalling 205,000 tonnes, fail to be completed after last week's quake forced the shutdown of several Japanese crackers.

The northeast coast ports of Hachinohe, Sendai, Ishinomaki and Onahama are so severely damaged that they are not expected to return to normal operations for months.

Hachinohe handles a wide variety of goods, including fuel products to the local fishing fleet and U.S. military installations in Japan and South Korea. Other ports handle goods ranging from coal and rubber to LNG and machinery.

The large container and oil port of Kashima is also closed, but officials expect four out 11 berths to resume operations in two weeks.

Other damaged ports include Hitachinaka, Hitachi, Soma, Shiogama, Kesennuma, Ofunato, Kamashi and Miyako. The ports handle products ranging from sugar and non-ferrous metals to cars and wood products.

LNG