KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait’s crude oil exports to Japan increased 6.7 percent in August from a year earlier to 6.32 million barrels, or 204,000 barrels per day (bpd), for the first rise in four months, government data showed.
As Japan’s sixth-biggest oil provider, Kuwait supplied 6.4 percent of the Asian nation’s total crude imports, the Japanese Natural Resources and Energy Agency said in a preliminary report.
Japan’s overall imports of crude oil declined 8.3 percent year-on-year to 3.21 million bpd for the second consecutive month of fall.
Shipments from the Middle East accounted for 84.7 percent of the total, up 2.6 percentage points from the year before. Saudi Arabia remained Japan’s No.1 oil supplier, but imports from the kingdom plunged 18.6 percent from a year earlier to 978,000 bpd, followed by the United Arab Emirates with 818,000 bpd, down 6.0 percent.
Qatar was next at 312,000 bpd, down 12.8 percent. Russia ranked fourth and Iran fifth, respectively. Japan is the world’s-third biggest oil consumer after the US and China, importing virtually all its fossil fuels.
