Posts Tagged ‘Japan’

The big Japan LNG import bill could get some help with the aid of the Henry Hub

By Takeo Kumagai | February 26, 2013 12:01 AM Comments (1)

A research note published last week by the Development Bank of Japan on the impact and implications for Japanese industries as a result of the US shale gas revolution was food for thought.

Particularly, the bank’s analysis on the impact on Japanese LNG procurement coming from possible LNG imports from the US was notable.

In the report, the DBJ said that Japan might be able to cut its LNG import costs by 7-15% of by 2020 if Japanese companies were able to take a large amount of LNG from planned US export projects, with the price tied to Henry Hub gas prices.

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Japan starts to break the oil-index tie on its LNG purchases

By Takeo Kumagai | December 4, 2012 02:52 PM Comments (5)

While it has yet to be seen whether Japan’s increased efforts to pursue shifting its pricing basis for its LNG imports to other benchmarks will actually reduce its import costs, it is still certain that 2012 will be recorded as a landmark year for the country began to publicly pursue an alternative to the long-held oil index basis for LNG purchases.

After decades of maintaining the oil price indexation for almost all of its long-term LNG imports, going back all the way to its initial LNG imports in 1969, Japanese power and gas utilities have been able to make a switch in some contracts to a natural gas benchmark.

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Japan used a lot more oil this summer, just not as much as expected

By Takeo Kumagai | August 31, 2012 10:37 AM Comments (0)

“Use air conditioning more at home!” I heard that joke — if it is a joke — from several oil industry sources from different companies in Japan at the start of the country’s three-month summer power demand season.

The phrase symbolized how Japan’s crude and fuel oil demand for power generation in July was a disappointment for the suppliers of those fuels, as demand for oil-fired power generation was not as strong as expected.

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July PX Asia contract price fails to settle, shows disconnect between traders, end-users

By News Desk | July 20, 2012 03:58 AM Comments (0)

The Asian paraxylene contract price for July was left in limbo as PX producers and downstream purified terephthalic acid makers failed to reach an agreement. The ACP monthly negotiation is led by four PX producers — ExxonMobil, JX Nippon Oil and Energy, Idemitsu Kosan and S-Oil — and six PTA makers — BP, Capco, Mitsui Chemicals Corp., Mitsubishi Chemical Corp., Oriental Petrochemical (Taiwan) Corp. and Yisheng Petrochemicals. 

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Japan: Caught between the insurance trap and EU sanctions on Iran oil

By Takeo Kumagai | June 5, 2012 07:33 AM Comments (0)

Come July 1, Japan will have to navigate through a maze of European Union sanctions against Iran and may have to make deeper cuts in its Iranian crude oil imports once the measures come into effect.

The biggest obstacle for Japan this year that may prevent it from maintaining already lower imports from Iran is if local buyers of Iranian crude oil lose the majority of their shipping insurance cover as a result of the EU sanctions and cannot secure alternative cover.

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The pressure on Iranian oil exports: this week’s scorecard

By John Kingston | May 9, 2012 03:56 AM Comments (0)

The week is only about 3/5 over, but there already have been numerous developments regarding the West’s continuing pressure on various countries, mostly Asian, to either cap their Iranian purchases at prevailing levels, or reduce them.

Here’s a quick summary of what’s transpired in the past few days, based on reporting from a wide range of Platts’ staff members: Takeo Kumagai, Pradeep Rajan, Mriganka Jaipuriyar, M.C Vaijayanthi and Charles Lee.

If there’s one conclusion that can be drawn from these various reports, it would be this: earlier conventional wisdom that Iran would simply transfer the oil from cancelled EU sales into its Asian customers is looking woefully wrong.  (A summary report of where events stood last week can be read here.)

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US LNG exports loom but Australia’s Santos keeps watch on Qatar

By Christine Forster | April 3, 2012 03:04 AM Comments (0)

With analysts increasingly speculating about the possibility of North American exports putting an end to Australia’s LNG boom, at least one local player is keeping eyes firmly on the current market leader, Qatar.

“My belief is that Qatar will remain an important factor in the market for a long time,” David Knox, chief executive of emerging Australian LNG producer Santos said recently. “North American volumes will probably not be as large as people envisage in the long term and will remain a relatively small proportion of global LNG demand,” he told a briefing following the release of the company’s annual results in Feburary.

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Japan in a quandary as Iran tensions expose energy vulnerability

By Takeo Kumagai | February 27, 2012 07:39 AM Comments (0)

Japan faces a dilemma. It has to balance its changed energy needs in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster with the more urgent matter of cutting its imports of Iranian crude oil to avoid being shut out of the US financial system.

Whatever the outcome of discussions with Washington on the extent of the reduction in imports from Iran, Japan faces longer term energy security issues because of its heavy reliance on Middle Eastern crude, a vulnerability that has been exposed further with recent threats by Iran to block the Strait of Hormuz.

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NATO, its partners in the Middle East, and the Strait of Hormuz

By John Roberts | January 31, 2012 10:31 AM Comments (0)

(John Roberts was a guest lecturer on energy security at the NATO Partnership for Peace Symposium at Oberammergau earlier this month.)

When NATO looks at Iran it would seem reasonable to expect that it was looking at how the western world’s warships are cramming into the Strait of Hormuz amidst charge and counter-charge that the strait faces the prospect of an Iranian blockade.

But when NATO invites its partners in the region — countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt are all members of NATO’s Partnership for Peace program — for an informal symposium on issues of mutual interest, it’s not just energy security that’s up for discussion, but cyber security, water and the problems posed by declining military budgets.

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Japan, South Korea challenge majors’ domination of LNG supply chain

By Takeo Kumagai | December 5, 2011 06:40 AM Comments (0)

Japan and South Korea initiated talks at the end of November on LNG policy that could challenge the domination of the LNG supply chain by the international oil majors and producing countries.

Indeed, the talks could be seen as setting out an outline for an eventual forum of major LNG consuming countries that would provide a counterweight to moves by gas exporting powers to exercise more control over international gas supply.

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