JAPAN DATA: July oil products imports jump 23% on year on major run cuts

Tokyo — Japan's oil product imports jumped 23.2% year on year and 7.5% month on month to 623,650 b/d in July, while local refiners slashed their crude throughput by 30.6% year on year to 2.098 million b/d, preliminary data released Aug. 31 by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry shows.

Local refiners remained cautious about overcommitting to crude procurement and crude distillation unit run rates, causing fuel suppliers to turn to importing more oil products, as opposed to producing the fuel themselves.

Japan was a net importer of gasoline for the fourth consecutive month in July due to low refinery run rates and a month-on-month recovery in domestic sales.

Japan imported an average of 90,534 b/d of gasoline in July, up 73.4% from a year earlier and 18.3% from June, while it exported 13,892 b/d of gasoline.

Imports of gasoil came in at 15,563 b/d in July, more than triple the 5,043 b/d a year earlier but 28.7% lower than in June.

Kerosene imports averaged 18,138 b/d in July, close to 18 times higher than 1,013 b/d in July 2019, and close to triple June's 6,503 b/d. Jet fuel imports came in at 1,247 b/d in July after no aviation fuel imports recorded a year earlier and in June.

METI publishes its data in kiloliters, which S&P Global Platts converts to barrels using a rate of 6.2898. Platts also takes into account revisions made by METI to data published in previous months.

JAPANESE PRODUCT IMPORTS IN JULY (B/D)

JAPANESE PRODUCT IMPORTS IN JANUARY-JULY (B/D)

Source: Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry