Japan took in 200,000 barrels of oil per day from Iran on average in the last Iranian month that ended onJune 20, National Iranian Oil Company’s deputy for international affairs said on Monday.
Mohsen Qamsari also said Iran has a 120,000-barrel-per-day oil export contract with Japan, which has already been renewed for a year and added that exports to the traditional East Asian customer witnessed an incremental growth over the past three months.
“Although Japan’s crude refining capacity has reduced to 3.6 million bpd from 5 million barrels, its oil imports from Iran stood over 200,000 bpd last month,” he said.
As Japanese officials have also expressed their willingness to increase import from Iran due to its quality crude, Iran's share in Japan's oil market is expected to reach 10% from roughly 5% at present.
“Under the present circumstances, Iran can have a share of 160,000 bpd to 200,000 bpd in Japan’s market,” Qamsari said.
According to reports, Middle East producers supplied around 87% of Japan's crude demand in April, which marks a 10% surge in exports compared with the same period last year.
Saudi Arabia claimed the lion’s share of Japan’s oil imports in April, amounting to 1.4 million barrels a day on average.
According to Qamsari, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Russia and Mexico account for 32%, 22.4%, 9.1%, 8.3%, 8% and 2.73% of Japan's oil market, respectively.
Iran is largely banking on Asian customers to drive up crude exports amid a global oversupply that has dragged down prices and left a hole in its annual budget. China and India are the two biggest buyers of Iranian crude, followed by South Korea, Japan and Turkey.
The country has also resumed shipments to European buyers who import around one-third of Iran's total crude exports in the post-sanctions period.
