Japan's May 3-9 crude runs fall to 2.29 mil b/d, 65% of capacity: PAJ

Tokyo — Japan's crude throughput fell further by 1.9% week on week to 2.29 million b/d over May 3-9, with its refinery utilization rates having fallen to just 65% of the capacity, the Petroleum Association of Japan said Wednesday.

The reduced crude throughput came during the country's Golden Week national holidays -- one of Japan's peak driving seasons -- over late April to early May because the public refrained from going out amid the nationwide state of emergency measures against COVID-19.

During the public holiday season, Japan's gasoline shipments are estimated to have dropped 38.8% year on year to 7.04 million barrels in the two weeks to May 9, according to S&P Global Platts calculations based on PAJ data.

The latest weekly figure points to a refining capacity utilization rate of 65%, based on Japan's utilized design capacity of 3.5188 million b/d, down from 66.3% a week ago.

The May 3-9 crude throughput was down 24.9% from a year earlier, according to S&P Global Platts data.

PAJ released its petroleum data on Wednesday for the weeks of April 26-May 2 and May 3-9 because of Japan's Golden Week national holidays.

In the week to May 2, Japanese refiners also cut their crude throughput by 5.4% from a week earlier to 16.33 million barrels, with their refinery run rates having dropped from 70.1% in the previous week.