Liquefied natural gas stockpiles held by major Japanese utilities were down by three per cent to 2.12 million tonnes in the week to March 8, data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed on Wednesday.
LNG stockpiles were in line with the same period a year ago and up from two million tonnes on average for this time of the year over the last five years, the data showed.
In the previous week, LNG stockpiles were at 2.19 million tonnes. Japan gets around six per cent of its LNG supplies via the Strait of Hormuz, which is blocked due to the US and Israel war with Iran.
Qatar, Japan's biggest LNG supplier in the Middle East, has declared force majeure on LNG shipments. Overall, Japan holds just under four million tonnes of LNG in inventories, METI said on Tuesday, equal to around one year of supplies shipped through the Strait of Hormuz.
As the demand for electricity and gas in Japan is expected to be relatively low in the coming months due to seasonal factors, METI does not see immediate risks to the stable supply of gas and electricity as of now, Kenji Yamada, state minister of METI, said on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Katya Golubkova; Additional reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair)
