Japan’s customs-cleared crude oil imports rose 8.5% in 2022 from a year earlier, while the value of imported crude oil jumped 91.5% to 13.27 trillion yen due to soaring oil prices and a weaker yen, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said on Thursday.

Japan, the world’s fourth-biggest crude buyer, imported 2.70 million barrels per day (156.62 million kilolitres) of crude oil last year, the preliminary data showed.

It marked the first year-on-year volume increase in 10 years and the crude oil import price per kilolitre hit a record 84,728 yen ($661), the highest since the compatible data became available in 1979, the MOF said.

Japan’s imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in volume fell 3.1% to 71.998 million tonnes in 2022 from a year earlier, but the value of imported LNG soared 97.5% to record 8.45 trillion yen. Imports of thermal coal for power generation increased 2.5%

in 2022 to 115.38 million tonnes, while the value of imported thermal coal surged 196.7%, the data showed.

For December, crude oil imports rose 1.2% to 3.02 million bpd (14.885 million kl) of crude oil from a year earlier.

Japan’s imports of LNG totalled 6.062 million tonnes last month, down 13.8% from a year earlier.

Imports of thermal coal for power generation increased by 7.4% in December to 10.598 million tonnes, the data showed.

Following is a preliminary breakdown of energy imports for 2022 and last month, with volumes of crude, oil products and gasoline/naphtha in million kilolitres; LNG, LPG and coal in million tonnes; values in million yen.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)