Asia Pacific: Storage

Gas storage levels in Japan and South Korea are expected to rise before winter.

At the start of the summer, Japan had around 4.2 bcm of gas in stock while South Korea had approximately 2.5 bcm. This represented a year-on-year decline in storage volumes for both countries. In Japan, stocks were down by 3% on an annual basis and in South Korea they dropped by 27%. The need for restocks before winter is expected to result in increased gas purchases for storage over the coming months compared with last year. However, although this will lend support to South Korean import volumes in particular, given the weak levels of demand in both countries, this will not be enough to boost total import requirements.