Arab News Japan

TOKYO: Japan’s imports of Saudi crude oil increased significantly in August, reaching about 36.97 million barrels, or 39.9% of the total imports in that month, according to the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

In July, Japan’s imports of Saudi crude oil amounted to 28.51 million barrels, or 35.1% of the total.

During August, Japan imported a total of 92.56 million barrels of oil, of which the Arab oil share was 87.46 million barrels (94.5%). This was provided by six Arab countries: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain.

Japan imported 32.58 million barrels from UAE, or 35.2% of total imports, in August. Kuwait provided 9.61 million barrels (10.4%) and Qatar 6.84 million barrels (7.4%). Japan imported about 1.3 million barrels (1.4%) from Oman and 146,000 barrels from Bahrain.

The rest of the imports for August, according to the Ministry’s figures, came from the USA (2.7%), Central and South America (2.4%), Southeast Asia (0.3%) and Oceania (0.1%).

Imports from Russia and Iran were zero as Japan abides by the sanctions against those countries.

The figures cited represent the quantities of oil that arrived at refineries, storage facilities and warehouses in ports in Japan during August.

Japan uses oil to generate about a third of its energy needs.