Japan’s crude imports from Kuwait fall 2.4%

Japan’s crude oil imports from Kuwait fell 2.4 percent inFebruary from a year earlier to 6.65 million barrels, or 238,000 barrels per day (bpd),for the first decline in two months, government data showed Monday.As Japan’s sixth-biggest oil provider, Kuwait supplied 6.0 percent of the Asian nation’stotal crude imports, the Japanese Natural Resources and Energy Agency said in apreliminary report.Japan’s overall imports of crude oil rose 11.0 percent year-on-year to 3.95 million bpdfor the first increase in three months.Shipments from the Middle East accounted for 82.1 percent of the total, up 0.4percentage points from a year before.