Japan will start buying liquefied natural gas for an emergency reserve from January next year, Reuters has reported, citing two unnamed sources from the country’s trade and industry ministry.
The purchases aim to boost Japan’s Strategic Buffer LNG program at a monthly rate of at least 70,000 tons, the sources told Reuters, for a total of at least 840,000 tons for 2026. Over the last two years, Japan has been buying LNG at a rate of 210,000 tons annually, the publication noted.
Japan is the world’s second-largest importer of liquefied natural gas due to its energy commodity scarcity. These imports recently came into the spotlight after the United States stepped up the pressure on Russia’s energy industry and buyers of Russian energy commodities, urging them to switch to U.S. energy instead.
Initially, Japan told Washington it would find it difficult to replace Russian gas from the Sakhalin-2 project, in which Japanese firms Mitsui and Mitsubishi hold minority stakes, saying it was crucial for the country’s energy security.
Later, however, executives from some of Japan’s biggest utilities said they believed that they would be able to find an alternative gas supply in case they were no longer able to import Russian LNG. JERA, which imports LNG from Sakhalin-2 under contracts expiring in 2026 and 2029, can tap alternative supply, and “there is a good chance that we will be able to do something” if it has to halt imports of Russian LNG, Naohiro Maekawa, an executive officer at the utility, said last month.
JERA will now buy at least one LNG cargo every month for the Strategic Buffer LNG program, the ministry sources told Reuters. If unused, the cargoes would either be used domestically or resold, the sources also said.
“Shifting to a monthly basis is not directly related to Russian energy issues, but it enables us to respond to any emergency situation,” one of the unnamed officials said.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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