Home / Shipping News / Hellenic Shipping News / Japan’s Oil Imports Fail to Bring Relief to Tanker Owners

Japan’s Oil Imports Fail to Bring Relief to Tanker Owners

Once a very important tanker play, Japan’s crude oil imports have been steadily decreasing in the past few years. In its latest weekly report, shipbroker Banchero Costa said that “Japan is one of the largest consumers of oil in the world, relying exclusively on imports as a result of its negligible production. Nevertheless, two decades of anaemic economic growth, and an aging and shrinking population, combined with improved energy efficiency, has resulted in a steady decline in crude oil imports. Japan’s crude oil imports declined by -5.4% in full year 2018 to 149.2 mln tonnes, and then by -2.3% in 2019 to 145.8 mln t in 2019. Japan is another country which has handled the Covid-19 crisis better than most other nations. Nevertheless, the effects on the Japanese economy have been significant, especially in terms of dwindling demand for the country’s exports, and this is reflected in the raw material importsthis year.

Source: Banchero Costa

According to Banchero Costa, “in the first 7 months of 2020, Japan imported 74.9 mln tonnes of crude oil by sea, according to vessel tracking data from Refinitiv. This represents a net decline of -13.0% y-o-y, compared to the 86.0 mln tonnes imported in the same seven-month period of 2019. Things were still Ok-ish in the first quarter of the year, but went into freefall in the second quarter. On a single-month basis, January 2020 was down -3.3% year-on-year to 12.6 mln tonnes, whilst February 2020 showed a -1.5% y-o-y decline to 11.8 mln tonnes. In March 2020 arrivals rebounded slightly to 12.1 mln tonnes, up +2.0% m-o-m from February, but down -4.1% year-on-year. April 2020 recorded again 11.6 mln tonnes, down -4.1% m-o-m from March, and -8.5% y-o-y drop from 11.6 mln tonneslast year”.

The shipbroker added that “from May, things went from bad to worse. In May 2020 arrivals fell to 10.1 mln tonnes, down -12.9% m-o-m from April, and down -17.4% yearon-year. In June, imports declined further to 7.3 mln tonnes, down -27.2% m-om and -33.3% year-on-year. In July, they rebounded slightly to 9.3 mln tonnes, up +27.2% m-o-m but still down -25.5% year-on-year. Japan has always depended heavily on importsfrom the Middle East. In the first 7 months of 2020, as much as 91.5% of Japan’s crude imports were shipped from the Arabian Gulf. Shipments from Saudi Arabia to Japan decreased by -11.4% y-o-y in Jan-Jul 2020, to 28.8 mln tonnes, from 32.5 mln tonnes in the same period last year. Saudi Arabia accounts now for 38.4% of Japan’s total crude imports”.

Source: Banchero Costa

Banchero Costa went on to mention that “arrivals from Qatar also declined by -16.1% y-o-y in Jan-Jul 2020, to 7.2 mln tonnes, from 8.5 mln tonnes in the same period last year. Qatar accounts for 9.6% of Japan’s total crude imports. On the other hand, imports from the UAE increased by +2.0% yearon-year, to 23.6 mln tonnes, from 23.1 mln tonnes in the same period last year. The UAE accounts for 31.5% of Japan’s total crude imports. Shipments from Kuwait also increased, by +14.6% year-on-year to 8.1 mln tonnes. Kuwait accounts for 10.8% of Japan’s total crude imports. Elsewhere, shipments from Russia to Japan declined by -21.2% y-o-y to 2.9 mln tonnes. Surprisingly, imports from the United States collapsed this year. They were down -77.0% y-o-y in Jan-Jul 2020 to 0.6 mln tonnes, from 2.5 mln tonnes in the same period last year”, the shipbroker concluded.
Nikos Roussanoglou, Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide

Recent Videos

Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and International Shipping