Japan's LNG imports in May fell 4% from a year earlier to 5.5 million mt, the lowest monthly import volume since October 2010, data released by the Ministry of Finance showed Wednesday.
Compared to April 2016, May's imports were down 13.5%.
Australia remained the biggest LNG supplier for Japan, shipping 1.4 million mt in May, up 15% from a year ago but down 23.3% from April.
Malaysia came in second exporting about 1 million mt of LNG in May, rising 6.4% from a year earlier but dropping 11.8% from the previous month.
Indonesia sent 503,787 mt, up 30.8% year on year and also gaining 3.4% from April.
Volume from Nigeria plunged 77.6% year on year to 73,159 mt in May while volume from Oman more than tripled on the year to 191,305 mt.
In May, three Oman cargoes were delivered to the Sakai terminal run by Osaka Gas, the Yanai terminal operated by Chugoku Electric and the Kagoshima terminal by Nihon Gas, according to Platts trade flow software cFlow.
In terms of spot, Japan received a 67,294 mt cargo from France at a price of $358.72/mt or $6.899/MMBtu.
The LNG vessel BW GDF Suez Paris delivered a reload cargo from Fos-sur-Mer in France to the Futtsu terminal in Tokyo on May 25, according to cFlow.
The Japan Customs Cleared crude oil price was $40.621/b in May, falling 31.4% from a year earlier but up 9.9% from April.
Some of Japan's long-term LNG contracts are linked to the JCC crude price but with a lag of a few months, so fluctuations in oil prices typically take time to be reflected in LNG prices.
