Japan’s Nov ‘08 naphtha output falls nearly 15% from ‘07

20 January 2009 13:31  [Source: ICIS news]

TOKYO (ICIS news)--Japan produced a total of 1.54m kilolitres of naphtha in November 2008, down 14.7% from 1.81m kilolitres during the same time a year before, according to revised government figures released on Tuesday.

The country imported 1.68m kilolitres of naphtha in November, a 30.8% decrease from the previous year, while 35,680 kilolitres were exported, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) said in its revised report.

Domestically, 3.57m kilolitres of naphtha were sold in November, down 15.1% year on year, METI said.

METI also released a revised report on the country’s chemical production in November.

The production of ethylene in November was down 17.4% to 537,640 tonnes compared with the year before, while 355,638 tonnes were shipped domestically. This was a 14.9% decrease from November 2007, the ministry said.

METI said a total of 242,958 tonnes of polyethylene (PE) were produced in November, a 15.6% decrease from the same period the previous year.

Domestic sales of PE totalled yen (Y) 43.3m ($477,714) in November, down 14.3% year on year, METI said.

Production of polypropylene (PP) in November decreased 10.2% to 235,629 tonnes, while domestic sales totalled Y39.8bn, down 14.4% year on year, according to METI.

All of the three other primary plastic products – polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polystyrene (PS) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) – saw a decline in production in November compared with the year before, with the largest decrease of 28.2% for PVC, ministry figures showed.

The revised seasonally adjusted index of industrial production in November was 93.6, down 8.5% from October, METI said.

The index is based on 100 for the average production in 2005.

For the chemical industry, the seasonally adjusted index of production in November was 88.2, down from 91 in October, the ministry said.

($1 = Y90.64)

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