Japan's total oil product sales are expected to fall 2.6 percent in the financial year starting next April from the current fiscal year, the nation's top energy forecaster said on Friday. Gasoline sales, which account for over a fifth of the fuel used in the world's third-biggest oil consuming country, are expected to fall 2.1 percent next fiscal year, the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan, said in its annual outlook.
IEE Japan's latest projections for a 3.2 percent fall in total oil sales in 2009/10 mark a narrower decline than the 4.7 percent fall forecast last year. An ageing population and a shift by consumers towards greener energy has weakened demand in Japan, the world's third-biggest oil consumer nation, in recent years.
ALUMINIUM SHIPMENTS DOWN Japanese shipments of aluminium products fell 1.0 percent in November from a year earlier to 164,859 tonnes, industry data showed on Friday. That was down slightly from 165,480 tonnes in October, the Japan Aluminium Association data showed. It was the 14th consecutive month of year-on-year falls in shipments, but the fall was sharply smaller than October's 14.3 percent drop from the year-earlier level.
Year-on-year declines have been narrowing from a near 40 percent drop earlier this year as demand from the automobile and semiconductor industries picks up. The November figures were down 0.4 percent from October. Japanese demand for metals such as copper and aluminium plunged from late last year as the worst global economic downturn in decades hit consumer spending and forced manufacturers to cut output.
Demand was slowly returning and stabilising, but industry officials remained cautious about the outlook. Japan's apparent demand for aluminium has finally recovered close to levels seen before the economic crisis at the end of last year, but could slow or even dip again next year if the country's fragile economy stalls.
Aluminium stocks held at three key Japanese ports rose for a second consecutive month to 180,500 tonnes at the end of November, trading house Marubeni Corp said. Some of the purchases were apparently made to build up stocks. A Marubeni official said he did not expect further moves to boost stocks in the coming months.
COPPER EXPORTS DOWN Japan's refined copper exports fell 2.1 percent in November from a year earlier to 38,653 tonnes, with China the destination for about half the volume, Ministry of Finance data showed on Friday.
Copper, used in many goods including utensils, construction materials and computer chips, is often seen as a gauge of economic activity. Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand are also key markets for Japan's copper. Japan's domestic consumption for copper plunged from late last year as the economic slump caused demand for consumer goods to fall forcing manufacturers to cut output.
Copper demand data for November showed a mixed bag of results on Thursday, underscoring that consumption was returning in some Japanese industries but not all. Japan's output of rolled copper products rose to 69,132 tonnes in November on a seasonally adjusted basis, up 0.8 percent from a year earlier, preliminary data showed, marking the first year-on-year increase in 16 months. However, Japanese copper wire and cable shipments amounted to an estimated 58,700 tonnes in November, down 7.7 percent from a year earlier.
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