Baku, Azerbaijan, June 20
By Emil Ilgar - Trend:
Japan has a contract with Iran to import 120,000 barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil in 2015, but during the last Iranian calendar month (April 22 to May 22), Japan imported more than 200,000 b/d of Iran's oil, Mohsen Qamsari, the international affairs director at the National Iranian Oil Company, told Shana June 20.
Iran's fiscal year started on March 21.
Qamsari said that Japan's oil import from Iran increased during the last three months.
"Japan has decreased refining oil from 5 mb/d in the last several years down to about 3.6 mb/d currently, but Iran hopes to have a 160-200 thousand b/d share in Japan's markets," he said.
According to preliminary statistics released by the Ministry of Finance of Japan, its crude oil imports declined by 2.3% in 2015 to around 3.37 mb/d, reaching their lowest level since 1988.