Japan, the world’s largest buyer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), increased its imports of the fuel in 2017, for the first time in three years.
The country imported 83.63 million tonnes million mt of LNG in the January-December period, a rise of 0.4 percent as compared to the year before, according to the provisional data released by Japan’s Ministry of Finance.
Japan paid about $35.6 billion for LNG imports last year, a rise of 19.3 percent year-on-year.
The country’s coal imports for power generation rose by 4.3 percent to 114.5 million tonnes, the data showed.
Imports of LNG and coal for power generation mainly rose due to nuclear shutdowns. Only four out of 42 operable nuclear reactors are currently running in Japan.
LNG imports were also boosted in December due to winter demand. These LNG imports increased 5.4 percent year-on-year to 7.95 million tonnes.
Japan remains by far to be the world’s top buyer of LNG importing more than 45 million tonnes than China that took over South Korea as the world’s second-biggest buyer of the fuel last year.
LNG World News Staff