RI turmoil has little impact on Japanese oil traders

RI turmoil has little impact on Japanese oil traders

TOKYO (Reuters): Japan's energy market should see little impact from the social and economic turmoil in oil producer Indonesia, Japanese crude traders said yesterday.

"I don't expect to see (events in Indonesia) having a big impact on Japan," one trader with a Japanese oil refiner said.

The area's leading crude oil consumer, Japan imported about 14.6 million kiloliters (kl), or 91.8 million barrels of crude oil from Indonesia in fiscal 1997/98. This represented about 5.5 percent of crude oil imported that year.

The volume is significantly lower than that from the United Arab Emirates, which supplies Japan with about 26.5 percent of its crude imports, or that from Saudi Arabia, which supplies 22.1 percent.

Crude oil from Indonesia is low in sulphur, and the majority is used by Japan's electric utilities industry.

Traders said that there had been no reports of any disruption in oil or gas production in Indonesia and they did not expect any problems.

There was little concern that social unrest might spread to Indonesia's oil and gas operations, as most of the facilities were based offshore or located far away from Jakarta, traders said.

"I haven't heard that there's been any disruption in operations or in any other area, nor do I think there's much chance of that happening," another trader said.

Given that Indonesia's crude output totals about 1.5 million barrels-per-day (bpd), one trader said some repercussions could be expected if Indonesia's oil production were halted.