{"id":28814,"date":"2026-03-15T12:09:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T10:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=28814"},"modified":"2026-03-15T12:09:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T10:09:50","slug":"japan-to-release-oil-stocks-as-us-vows-to-buy-american","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/japan-to-release-oil-stocks-as-us-vows-to-buy-american\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan to release oil stocks as US vows to buy American"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>As gasoline prices across Japan started to rise with the war disrupting supplies from the Gulf&#8217;s Strait of Hormuz, Tokyo pledged to release a record \u200b80 million barrels of oil, about 45 days of supply for the resource-poor nation.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>The government has asked \u200bJapan&#8217;s refiners to use the released crude, which will reduce the national reserves by 17%, \u2060to secure domestic supplies. It is not known how much of the oil will go to a global \u200brelease of 400 million barrels being coordinated by the International Energy Agency to address the war&#8217;s supply shock and \u200bprice volatility. Japan&#8217;s release shows how seriously Tokyo views the disruption, said Yuriy Humber, Chief Executive Officer, of Tokyo-based consultancy Yuri Group.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;The reserves can help stabilise supplies and prices in the short term but they mainly buy time. They can&#8217;t \u200bfully offset a prolonged disruption in the Strait of Hormuz,&#8221; he said. Any potential release from 12 million barrels \u200bjointly held in Japan by Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait would be in addition to the announced 80 million \u200cbarrels, the \u2060Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry says. Japan started its national oil reserve system in 1978, several years after the Arab oil embargo. The Group of Seven nation, reliant on the Middle East for around 90% of its oil, now stockpiles 254 days of consumption.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13929,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-28814","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Japan plans \u200bto start releasing oil from its stockpiles on Monday to soften the shock from the \u200cUnited States (US)-Israeli war on Iran, a stark reminder of the oil crisis half a century ago that prompted Tokyo to create reserves","published_date":"2026-03-15 00:00:00","news_description":"Japan plans \u200bto start releasing oil from its stockpiles on Monday to soften the shock from the \u200cUnited States (US)-Israeli war on Iran, a stark reminder of the oil crisis half a century ago that prompted Tokyo to create reserves","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/28814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/28814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28815,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/28814\/revisions\/28815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=28814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}