Japan’s 10 Power Utilities Double April Crude Oil Consumption

Japan’s 10 regional utilities more than doubled their crude oil consumption in April from a year earlier as they boosted output at thermal power plants.

The utilities, led by Tokyo Electric Power Co., consumed 397,558 kiloliters, or 2.5 million barrels, of crude, up from 180,863 kiloliters a year earlier, according to data released by the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan today.

Power generation by the utilities fell 8.4 percent to 69.1 billion kilowatt-hours because of energy conservation and a setback in industrial production following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the federation said.

Thermal power generation rose 6.3 percent in the month, while output at nuclear power plants dropped 24 percent, according to the federation’s data.

The following table shows Japanese utilities’ consumption and intake of fuel oil, crude, liquefied natural gas and coal for April. Fuel oil and crude volume is in kiloliters, while LNG and coal volume is in metric tons.

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                  April 2011           Change on year

CONSUMPTION
Fuel oil           308,981                    -4.6%
Crude oil          397,558                   119.8%
LNG              3,417,227                     6.8%
Coal             3,256,631                     0.4%

INTAKE
Fuel oil           505,196                    56.7%
Crude oil          449,164                    57.2%
LNG              3,656,449                    10.3%
Coal             3,481,294                    -8.2%

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Source: The Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan

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.