By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com
Amid the supply disruption in the Middle East, Japan’s crude oil imports crashed by 66% in April from the same month last year, dropping to an all time low, official Japanese data showed on Friday.
Japan imported 4.07 million kilolitres, or about 850,000 barrels per day (bpd), of crude oil last month, down by 65.7% from the April 2025 levels, the monthly petroleum statistics of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) showed.
Crude imports from the Middle East region, which delivered more than 90% of Japan’s total crude imports before the war, plunged by 68% in April from a year earlier.
Japan’s imports from Saudi Arabia crashed by nearly 58%, and supply from the United Arab Emirate (UAE) to Japan plunged by 69.4%, the Japanese government data showed. Of the total severely reduced crude supply, the Middle East continued to account for more than 90% of Japanese crude imports, at 93.7% in April.
Japan in April imported the lowest volume of crude oil from the Middle East on record dating back to 1979 as the Iran war and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz choked supply from the region.
Japan’s crude imports from the Middle East plummeted by 67.2% in April compared to the same month of 2025, provisional trade data from Japan’s Finance Ministry showed last week. The April 2026 volume, estimated in Japan at 3.843 million kiloliters of crude oil, was the lowest since data collection began in 1979.
Japan has just welcomed the first shipment of Middle East crude via the Strait of Hormuz since the Iran war began on February 28.
Japan is also releasing crude from its strategic reserves as part of an IEA-coordinated global effort to release 400 million barrels of crude and oil products.
The ongoing oil stocks release, which is Japan’s biggest ever, is helping Japanese refiners increase throughput. So is alternative supply from producers outside the Middle East, including rare cargoes from Azerbaijan and Latin America.