Kuwait’s oil exports to Japan down 27%

Kuwait’s crude oil exports to Japan in December 2023 declined 27.0 percent from a year earlier to 5.92 million barrels, or 191,000 barrels per day (bpd), down for the third consecutive month, government data showed Wednesday. As Japan’s third-biggest oil provider, Kuwait supplied 7.2 percent of its total crude imports, compared with 8.8 percent in the same month of last year, the Japanese Natural Resources and Energy Agency said in a preliminary report.

For the whole of 2023, Kuwait’s crude oil exports to Japan stood at 224,000 bpd, up 1.1 percent from the previous year, and took up 8.8 percent of total Japanese crude imports. Japan’s overall imports of crude oil in December fell 10.2 percent year-on-year to 2.66 million bpd, down for the second month in a row. Shipments from the Middle East accounted for 91.0 percent of the total, down 2.2 percentage points from the year before.

By country, Saudi Arabia remained in the top spot, although imports from the kingdom slid 3.6 percent from a year earlier to 1.17 million bpd, followed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with 901,000 bpd, down 16.4 percent. The US ranked fourth with 139,000 bpd and Qatar fifth with 112,000 bpd, respectively. For the full year 2023, Japan’s crude oil imports shrank 6.9 percent on the year to 2.55 million bpd. Japan is the world’s third-biggest oil consumer after China and the US.

Crude oil is down

Meanwhile, the price of Kuwaiti crude oil went down by $1.82 to $83.49 per barrel on Tuesday, compared to $85.31 pb the day before, said the Kuwaiti Petroleum Corporation (KPC) on Wednesday. Brent crude oil went up by 47 cents to $82.87 pb, the same as the West Texas intermediate, up by $1.04 to reach $77.82. — KUNA