Japanese Oil Imports Drop in August

Japan’s crude oil imports in August decreased 4.5 percent from a year earlier to 106.68 million barrels, marking the first fall in three months, the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy said Monday.

Oil from the Middle East accounted for 83.7 percent of the total, down 0.6 percentage point, the agency under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said in a preliminary report.

Saudi Arabia remained Japan’s biggest oil supplier, exporting 36.29 million barrels, up 7.7 percent. The United Arab Emirates was second with 19.18 million barrels, down 19.1 percent, followed by Qatar with 13.59 million barrels, down 7.9 percent.

One barrel equals 0.159 kiloliter.

Japan’s output of petroleum products in August rose 0.4 percent from a year earlier to 16.50 million kl, the fourth consecutive monthly rise.

Domestic sales of such products fell 4.6 percent to 15.96 million kl.

via Mainichi

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza