Japan gas imports 77.5% up: Japan replaced almost all nuclear energy with liquid natural gas (LNG) imports

Japan gas imports: +77.5% from Jan ’11 to Jan ’13 – all-out efforts to reduce energy costs

Japan replaced almost all nuclear energy with liquid natural gas imports

Increased LNG import costs due to declining yen

Japan gas imports: Japan replaced almost all nuclear energy with liquid natural gas imports at very short notice. Japan pays far higher costs for liquid natural gas imports than most other regions in the world (find a detailed explanation why this is so, and how Japan’s LNG import prices are composed, in our J-Energy report). ‘Abenomics’ (Prime Minister Abe’s economy policy package) have increased the costs of imports further due a decline in the value of the yen.

Consequently, Japan makes all out efforts to find the optimal energy mix, in particular searching for domestic sources of energy including renewables, and reducing the cost of imports. More below.

Detailed energy import data, including detailed analysis why Japan’s LNG import costs are so much higher than elsewhere, in our report on Japan’s Energy Landscape.

Japan gas imports: 77.5% cost increase since January 2011

Reason for this increase are increased import quantities, the very high prices Japan is forced to pay for gas imports, and the decrease of the value of the YEN due to ‘Abenomics’. These very high costs drive all-out efforts to secure new sources of natural gas to reduce costs, and also drive the sofar neglected development of renewable energy sources in Japan.

Japan's gas import costs increased by 77.5% from Jan '11 to Jan '13. Source: https://www.eurotechnology.com/store/j_energy/
Japan’s gas import costs increased by 77.5% from Jan ’11 to Jan ’13. Source: https://www.eurotechnology.com/store/j_energy/

Primary energy imports are a very substantial part (about 7% currently) of Japan’s GNP, and have increased by 34% in January 2013 compared to January 2011

However, the figure above shows that current monthly costs of primary energy imports are below the peak just before the Lehman shock. Thus Japan’s primary energy costs are currently very substantial but not without precedent.
Detailed energy import data, including detailed analysis why Japan’s LNG import costs are so much higher than elsewhere, in our report on Japan’s Energy Landscape

Japan's primary energy import costs increased by 34% from Jan '11 to Jan '13. Source: https://www.eurotechnology.com/store/j_energy/
Japan’s primary energy import costs increased by 34% from Jan ’11 to Jan ’13. Source: https://www.eurotechnology.com/store/j_energy/

Descent into crisis of Japan’s electricity operators started in 2007:

Figure above clearly shows that the decent of Japan’s electricity operators started years before the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Therefore we conclude that restarting the nuclear reactors alone will not cure the crisis of Japan’s electricity operators, which for many years have enjoyed a monopoly position, and are now increasingly under attack by competitors including Japan’s very successful gas companies.
We added approx. 50 pages analysis of Japan’s gas sector to our Japan-Energy-Report.

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