Japan's Refinery Utilization Hits 73% as Strategic Oil Stocks Flow In
Japan's Refinery Utilization Hits 73% as Strategic Oil Stocks Flow In Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews.
Japan's refinery utilization rates are rebounding in May as releases from petroleum reserves and increased supply of non-Middle East crude are easing the crude supply crunch seen in March and most of April.
For the first time since March, refiners in Japan have boosted their average utilization rate to above 70% in the past two weeks, data from the Petroleum Association of Japan (PAJ)showedon Wednesday.
Utilization rate of the designed capacity was 73.3% in the week to May 9, following 77.3% utilization rate the week prior to May 2, the data showed.
These run rates compare to utilization rates inthe 60% rangein April, according to the weekly statistics data released by the PAJ.
Resource-poor Japan is one of the biggest energy importers globally and relied on the Middle East for as much as 95% of its oil imports before the war.
Most of the oil comes from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar.
Of these Middle Eastern supplies, about 70% typically arrived in Japan on tankers traveling through the Strait of Hormuz.
As the war choked supply from the Middle East, Japan beganreleasing oil stocksfrom national reserves at the end of March, as part of the IEA-coordinated record-high release of 400 million barrels of oil and fuel.
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 IEA's 400-million-barrel release.
The ongoing stocks release, which is Japan's biggest, is helping refiners increase throughput.
So is alternative supply from producers outside the Middle East, including rarecargoes from Azerbaijanand Latin America.
| Product | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brent Crude | $102.14/bbl | ▲ +0.34% |
| WTI Crude | $96.90/bbl | ▲ +0.21% |
| EN590 Diesel | $846/MT | ▲ +0.18% |
| Jet Fuel A-1 | $1090/MT | ▲ +0.55% |
| Mazut M100 | $450/MT | ▼ -0.15% |
| Bitumen 60/70 | $470/MT | ▲ +0.08% |
| Sulphur Gran 99.5% | $470/MT | ▼ -0.44% |
| Urea 46% Gran | $650/MT | ▲ +1.12% |
| NPK 16-16-16 | $460/MT | ▼ -0.28% |
| Nat Gas TTF | $15.42/MMBtu | ▲ +0.92% |
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