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Japan’s Middle East oil habit gets an Iran war reality check
Almost all of Japan’s oil comes from the Middle East. A closed strait turned that dependence into a trap
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Japan’s energy security has long hinged on Middle Eastern oil. The Iran war simply exposed how breakable that lifeline had become.
While a two-week ceasefire agreed on Tuesday promises some relief by reopening the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic, analysts say the shock has laid bare vulnerabilities Tokyo cannot easily paper over.
As an archipelago nation with no cross-border pipelines, Japan draws more than 95 per cent of its crude from the Middle East and routes the bulk of it through the very chokepoint that Iran shut.
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The result was an energy squeeze sharper than almost anywhere else in the G7, with domestic oil prices at their highest since 2008 and Tokyo forced into the largest strategic reserve release in its history.
“This latest geopolitical shock once again highlights the structural tension in Japan’s energy strategy,” said Parul Bakshi, a visiting research fellow at The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
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“The real test will be whether Japan can convert this moment of vulnerability into a catalyst for long-term energy transformation.”
Analysts say that transformation will require retooling refineries to handle non-Middle Eastern crude, including barrels from the United States and Canada, and restarting more nuclear power plants 15 years after the Fukushima disaster.
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