Japan will release additional volumes of crude oil next month, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said today, confirming earlier reports about more releases from inventories to handle the supply squeeze resulting from the war in the Middle East.
Last month, Japan began releasing oil from stockpiles, with plans in place to release a total of 50 days’ worth of demand. Japan is releasing a total of 80 million barrels of oil stocks, including 54 million barrels of crude and 26 million barrels of oil products, as part of the International Energy Agency’s planned 400-million-barrel release from OECD stocks to tackle the shortages.
The May release in Japan will secure another 20 days of oil supply as Japan looks for alternatives to Middle Eastern oil, Reuters noted in a report on the news about the second release of oil from stockpiles.
The resource-scarce Asian nation is one of the biggest energy importers globally and relies on the Middle East for as much as 95% of its oil imports. The disruption in the region has spurred Japan into action that is reportedly already bearing fruit: the government says that by next month, it will have secured half of its imports from suppliers outside the Middle East.
The biggest among these alternative suppliers is bound to be the United States, according to a government document that Reuters cited this week and that says Japanese imports of U.S. crude oil for May will be four times higher than they were a year earlier. The publication recalled that Japan’s U.S. oil imports in May 2025 averaged 189,000 barrels daily, representing about 8% of the country’s total imports that month.
In addition to U.S. barrels, Japan is also seeking crude oil supply from Malaysia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Nigeria, and Angola, the industry ministry said, as quoted by Reuters.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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