【Ferro-alloys.com】Japan intends to sell about 100,000 kiloliters, or 629,000 barrels, of Oman crude oil from its national petroleum reserves held at its Shibushi national petroleum reserves terminal in the southwest via tender in February 2022, part of joint efforts with the US and other countries to stabilize oil prices.

The sell tender, scheduled to be conducted on Feb. 9 from the Shibushi terminal in Kagoshima prefecture, is for the delivery of one shipment sometime over March 20-June 30, according to a tender notice issued by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on Dec. 27.

Japan plans to sell more crude oil from the national petroleum reserves by the end of March 2022, an official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Dec. 28, declining to elaborate on exact sales volumes.

Japan's sale of national petroleum reserves will be made by advancing its planned sales of crude oil for replacement in the national petroleum reserves, without violating the country's petroleum stockpiling law, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Nov. 24.

METI minister Koichi Hagiuda said on the same day that Japan's planned sales of national oil reserves were to be about "a couple of hundred thousand kiloliters," declining to elaborate on details such as exact sales volumes and the date of the expected tender.

In recent years, Japan has been replacing medium and heavy crude oil stocks in the national petroleum reserves with lighter grades to reflect growing domestic demand for lighter oil products.

The Japanese announcement came after the White House announced on Nov. 23 that the US will release 50 million barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of a unified effort with several other major oil-consuming countries to rein in high fuel prices.

At the end of October, Japan held a total 490.4 million barrels of petroleum reserves, equating to 244 days of domestic consumption, comprising national petroleum reserves, oil reserves held by the private sector and a joint crude oil storage scheme with Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, according to the latest METI data.

Crude oil stocks in the national oil reserves accounted for 285.9 million barrels of the total, while oil products in the national reserves another 8.99 million barrels.

Privately-held crude reserves totaled 75.9 million barrels, with oil product stocks at 108.8 million barrels, while 10.8 million barrels were held by Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi in Japan.

• [Editor:zhaozihao]