Japan's crude oil imports fell nearly 66 per cent in April from a year earlier, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) said on Friday, as the US-Iran conflict disrupted supplies from the Middle East.
The world's fifth-largest oil importer, which relies heavily on oil from the Middle East, imported 850,000 barrels per day (4.07 million kilolitres) of crude in April, METI data showed.
Imports from the Middle East fell 68 per cent, the data showed. The US-Israeli war on Iran that began on February 28 has severely curtailed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit route for roughly a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas supply.
Shipments from Japan's two largest suppliers - Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - dropped 60 per cent or more, according to the data.
Several crude oil tankers have left the Persian Gulf this month, although energy flows via the key waterway still remained far lower than pre-war levels.
Refiners in Japan and elsewhere in Asia deepened run cuts in April and May due to oil supply shortage. Japan's domestic oil product sales last month fell 11.3 per cent from a year earlier to 2.04 million bpd, the data showed.
Gasoline sales dropped 2.6 per cent to 693,875 bpd, while kerosene sales were down 13.3 per cent to 120,524 bpd. Sales of petrochemical feedstock naphtha fell 35.6 per cent to 406,231 bpd.
(Reporting by Siyi Liu and Florence Tan in Singapore; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)