Japan is considering a new release of about 20 days’ worth of oil reserves as early as May,\u00a0Kyodo\u00a0reported on Thursday, amid uncertainty over the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz despite a US-Iran\u00a0ceasefire.<\/p>\n
Japan, dependent on the Middle East for some 95% of its oil supply, began releasing oil from its stockpiles on March 16 in coordination with other nations and on its own.<\/p>\n
In total, Japan is making available about 50 days’ worth of oil consumption and has asked the International Energy Agency to consider a coordinated release of a second batch.<\/p>\n
It now has enough oil for 230 days in its reserves.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran on condition that Tehran reopened the Strait of Hormuz, but the vital waterway that normally carries about 20% of the world’s oil supply remains largely shut.<\/p>\n
Read:\u00a0Oil rebounds as fragile Gulf ceasefire, constrained Hormuz keep supply risks elevated<\/p>\n
As a resumption of safe navigation in the Strait of Hormuz is uncertain, an additional release of oil is under consideration to stabilise supply, Kyodo quoted an unnamed official as saying.<\/p>\n
Asked about the report, Narumi Hosokawa, deputy director-general for immediate crisis management at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, told reporters the ministry continues to examine the situation.<\/p>\n
With less crude oil available, Japanese refineries cut utilisation rates to 67.7% of designed capacity in the week to April 4, the lowest since June.<\/p>\n
To help cope with the energy supply crisis, Japan has started searching for non-Middle Eastern barrels, rolled out gasoline subsidies and stepped up coal-fired generation to reduce the need for liquefied natural gas supplies, which have also been cut due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n
While Japan has secured enough crude oil and naphtha for the country as a whole, there are supply imbalances and distribution bottlenecks in some areas, a METI document released on Thursday said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Japan is considering a new release of about 20 days’ worth of oil reserves as early as May,\u00a0Kyodo\u00a0reported on Thursday, amid uncertainty over the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz despite a US-Iran\u00a0ceasefire. Japan, dependent on the Middle East for some 95% of its oil supply, began releasing oil from its stockpiles on March 16 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3743,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737\/revisions\/3743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistantimesusa.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}