KUNA reported that Kuwait's crude oil exports to Japan jumped 25.3% in October from a year earlier to 8.19 million barrels or 264,000 barrels per day for the first expansion in 2 months.

The Japanese Natural Resources and Energy Agency said that as Japan's fourth biggest oil provider, Kuwait supplied 8.1% of the Asian nation's total crude imports, compared with 6.2% in the same month of last year and 7.3% in September.

Japan's overall imports of crude oil went down 3.6% YoY to 3.28 million barrels per day for the second consecutive monthly drop. Shipments from the Middle East stood at 2.72 million barrela per day and accounted for 81.1% of the total down 3.2 percentage points from the year before.

Saudi Arabia seized the top spot, with imports from the Kingdom growing 1.0% on the year to 1.04 million barrels per day followed by the United Arab Emirates with 725,000 barrels per day down 1.6%. Qatar ranked third but its shipments declined 12.9% to 309,000 barrel per day and Russia was fifth with 202,000 barrels per day up 11.4%.

Although the Japanese government has decided to provide insurance for tankers carrying Iranian crude bound for Japan imports from Iran plunged 40.2% last month to 157,000 barrels per day. The legislation enables the world's No.3 oil consumer to continue importing Iranian oil even after new European Union sanctions against Iran starting from July which ban insurance firms of EU countries from covering Iran's exports. Japan has already secured a waiver from US financial sanctions against Iran in return for cutting its imports of Iranian crude oil.

Resources poor Japan is the world's third largest oil consumer after the US and China and it relies on crude oil imports for about 50 percent of its energy needs. Shipments of direct deal which prices are based on the average spot price of Dubai crude, the benchmark for Asia, account for about 80 percent of Japan's crude imports.