Riyadh – Mubasher: Saudi Arabia and the UAE owned a combined 110 million barrels of crude oil at the end May in Japan's semi-national reserves, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing data released by the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy.

“Japanese government lends crude storage capacity for free to state-owned Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC), under which they can store up to about 6.3 million barrels each”, the agency added.

The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry said previously that the Japanese government is preparing to raise its crude reserves capacity to Saudi Aramco by 1.9 million barrels in the summer of 2017.

The Agency for Natural Resources and Energy did not release a breakdown of barrels for either of the two companies.

Since February 2011, Aramco has been storing its crude oil in Okinawa, Japan.

Japan also has an agreement with ADNOC that allows the UAE oil company to store up to 6.29 million barrels free of charge in Kiire port, in Kagoshima south of Japan.

At all times, Aramco and ADNOC must have half of their storage capacity filled.

“Japan gets a priority claim stockpiles in case of emergency and treats them as quasi-government inventory, counting half of the barrels as part of the national strategic crude reserves”, the agency concluded.