The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), the government's main overseas lender, will lend US$3 billion to Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) to secure a stable supply for Asia's biggest economy, which imports most of its oil needs.
The bank raised about a third of the loan amount from Mizuho Financial Group Inc and other Japanese banks, said people involved in the talks who declined to be identified before an official announcement. ADNOC will use the loan for oil exploration and building pipelines as well as facilities to boost crude output, the people said.
"With the UAE's [United Arab Emirates] oil structured into the loan, crude supplies to Japan are more assured," Hidetoshi Shioda, a senior energy analyst at Mizuho Securities Co, said by phone.
"It also benefits the UAE, as Japan will take steady supply for a longer period of time," he said.
Japan, the world's biggest oil consumer after the US and China, wants to map out a supply plan after crude prices set a record last month amid higher demand and competition from China and India for energy reserves.
The loan agreement will be signed this week when ADNOC's chief executive officer Yousef Omair Bin Yousef is in Tokyo, together with Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the people said.
JBIC spokesman Ryutaro Nishizaki declined to comment. An official in Dubai at ADNOC, who wouldn't give his name, declined to comment. Masako Shiono, a spokeswoman for Mizuho in Tokyo, declined to comment.
ADNOC is boosting exploration and output to replace reserves and to meet rising demand for oil, especially from Asian nations. By 2011, the company plans to increase production of Murban, a type of crude oil, by 20 percent, Abdulla Salem Al Dhaheri, ADNOC's manager for Far East area sales, said in March.
With the rise of China and India as bigger oil consumers, Japan wants to lock in long-term supplies, the people said, even as petroleum use in the country is expected to decline 1.8 percent annually to March 2012, according to the trade ministry.
Abu Dhabi National, the biggest oil producer in the UAE, will use oil payments from Japanese refiners such as Cosmo Oil Co to pay back the loan, the people said.
The UAE is Japan's biggest oil supplier after Saudi Arabia and the fourth-biggest producer in OPEC, which pumps about 40 percent of the world's oil.
Oil purchases from the UAE accounted for about 25 percent, or 388 million barrels, of Japan's total imports last year.
Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer, overtook the UAE to become Japan's largest supplier in 2005, a year after Saudi Aramco, Saudi's state-owned oil company, bought a stake in Showa Shell Sekiyu KK. Saudi Arabia doubled oil supplies to the refiner from April 2005.
The UAE is probably boosting investment in Japan to win back the top slot it held from 1984 to 2004 as the country's biggest oil supplier, Shioda said.
International Petroleum Investment Co, Abu Dhabi's state-owned investment company, on Oct. 5 bought a 20 percent stake in Cosmo Oil, becoming the largest shareholder in the Japanese refiner. IPIC's subsidiary, Infinity Alliance Ltd, will pay ¥89.2 billion (US$798 million) for 176 million new Cosmo shares, the Tokyo-based refiner said in a statement on Sept. 18.
"If oil supply becomes more ample in the future, they have an outlet in Japan to ship their supplies," Shioda said. "They have a long-term, faithful buyer."
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last