First Russian oil arrives in Japan since Iran war: media

TOKYO: Japan has taken delivery of its first shipment of oil from Russia since global supplies were choked off by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the Iran war, reports said Tuesday.

A tanker carrying crude that was produced as part of a Sakhalin-2 natural gas development project reached the coast of Imabari in western Japan and started offloading to a refinery on Tuesday, public broadcaster NHK and other media reported, citing unnamed sources from the economy ministry.

Japan, which depends on the Middle East for around 95 percent of its oil imports, has tried to diversify its sources of energy since the outbreak of war on February 28 saw Tehran effectively shut the strait.

The project in Russia’s Sakhalin region is not subject to global economic sanctions against Moscow that were put in place after it invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Wholesaler Taiyo Oil received a request from the economy ministry to take in the shipment, the reports said.

At the refinery, the crude will be turned into gasoline, naphtha — used to make various products from plastics, chemical fibres to paints — and other petroleum products, they said.

Ministry officials and the company could not immediately be reached to confirm the reports.

A global oil supply squeeze is inflicting an “enormous impact” on the Asia-Pacific region, Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said Monday in Canberra after talks with her Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese.

Japan and Australia would respond urgently to secure stable energy supplies, she said.

Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil normally passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and its closure has sent prices of the commodity soaring.

Takaichi said last week Tokyo was expected to have enough naphtha-derived chemical products to last beyond the end of the year after boosting imports from outside the Middle East.

Japan’s relationship with Russia has soured since it joined global sanctions against Moscow over the Ukraine war.