Japan’s imports of liquefied natural gas and thermal coal rose to a record in August because of low utilization rates at nuclear power plants. The nation’s LNG imports climbed 18.2 percent from a year earlier to 7.55 million metric tons, while thermal-coal imports increased 7.1 percent to 10 million tons, according to data released today by the Ministry of Finance. The operating rate for nuclear power plants fell to 26.4 percent in August, the Federation of Electric Power Companies announced last week. It was the lowest since the federation started compiling data in April 1977. Power generation at thermal plants rose 8.2 percent, while total electricity output by utilities dropped 12.1 percent on lower temperatures and efforts to conserve energy, according to the federation. The country’s crude-oil imports rose 1.2 percent to 18.38 million kiloliters, the finance ministry data showed. The following table shows Japan’s imports for August: ============================================================= Year-on-Year Change Crude oil 18.376 1.2% Gasoline 2.993 29.7% LNG 7.545 18.2% LPG 0.980 -15.9% Coal 16.385 1.0% (Thermal Coal) 10.045 7.1% (Crude oil and gasoline are in millions of kiloliters. LNG, LPG and coal are in millions of tons.) ============================================================== To contact the reporter on this story: Yuji Okada in Tokyo at yokada6@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net

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