The Japanese government has started to release oil from the national strategic reserves from Thursday. A total of 8.50 million kl of oil, or about 53.50 million barrels, would be released from a total of 11 storage bases and those cargoes would be supplied to four Japanese refiners, ENEOS, Idemitsu Kosan, Cosmo Oil and Taiyo Oil. On Thursday, crude oil stored at the Kikuma national stockpile base in Western Japan would be supplied to a refiner seen as Taiyo Oil. Crude oil supplies from other eight bases such as Tomakomai Higashi base in Northern Japan or Kashima Oil's Kashima terminal in central Japan would be supplied by the end of March. Supplies from stored crudes would start from April 1 from the Kamigoto National Stockpile base and Shibushi base in Southern Japan. The period of supplies would differ, depending on the bases, but delivery of these crude supplies would be mostly finished by the end of April. Supplies from some bases such as the Kamigoto base would be finished by the end of June at the latest.

Meanwhile, main crude grades to be released from national strategic reserves in Japan are medium heavy grades such as the Neutral Zone's Khafji, Hout and Saudi Arabia's Arab Medium (AM). But a certain rate of light grades such as Abu Dhabi Murban and Saudi Arabia's Arab Extra Light (AEL) are also included in strategic reserves as many refiners hoped to get light grades. Those crude grades would be delivered to tankers chartered by oil refiners. Foreign flagged vessels that received approval in addition to Japanese flagged vessels can transport crude oil from national reserves. Prices for these stockpile crudes are basically at flat to OSPs for the previous month before the delivered month.