Japan’s LNG imports rose slightly in September following a decline for two straight months, according to the provisional data released by the country’s Ministry of Finance.
The world’s largest importer of LNG received 6.50 million tonnes of the fuel last month.
This is up one percent from a year earlier and represents just the second monthly climb in volumes this year.
On the other side, coal imports for power generation continued to drop and they were down 6.6 percent to 8.51 million tonnes.
Furthermore, prices continued to decline and September LNG imports cost Japan about $1.87 billion. This marked a decline of 42.2 percent when compared to the same month last year.
Looking at last month’s LNG shipments, deliveries from Asia from countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia increased by 6.9 percent to 1.39 million tonnes, the ministry’s data shows.
Middle East LNG shipments from sources like Qatar dropped by 14.8 percent to 0.94 million tonnes.
Additionally, shipments from Russia surged 61.8 percent to 652,000 tonnes while US deliveries increased 25.5 percent to 419,000 tonnes.
In the April-September period, LNG imports dropped 6.5 percent to 33.4 million tonnes with the costs reaching about $13.2 billion.