Government calls for stronger energy supply structure in white paper

The Japanese government highlighted the urgent need to fundamentally strengthen the country’s energy supply-and-demand structure to prepare for future emergencies in its fiscal 2025 white paper on energy, adopted at a Cabinet meeting on Friday.

The white paper noted that, in response to the deterioration in the Middle East situation, Japan was the first in the world to decide to release its petroleum reserves, contributing to stable energy supplies both domestically and internationally.

The government also said in the white paper that options for crude oil procurement had narrowed and that oil dependence on the Middle East had been rising again in recent years on the back of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and economic growth in Asian oil-producing countries.

With supply imbalances also having emerged for petroleum products, Japan’s energy supply-and-demand structure was shown once again to be vulnerable, it said.

Elsewhere in the white paper, the government included a plan to strengthen efforts to secure stable fossil fuel supplies while accelerating the use of nuclear power and domestic renewable energy in order to fundamentally strengthen Japan’s energy supply-and-demand structure.

The energy white paper is usually adopted by the Cabinet around June each year, but its compilation was delayed this year due to the deterioration in the Middle East situation.