The worsening situation in the Middle East is beginning to affect Japan’s automotive sector, with shortages of engine oil and other lubricants emerging alongside rising prices, creating mounting pressure across the industry.
Free roll-type plastic bags once available to shoppers at supermarkets are being removed one after another as shortages of naphtha, a petroleum-derived raw material used in plastic production, spread across Japan amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East.
Japan’s corporate goods prices rose 4.9% in April from a year earlier, far exceeding market expectations as soaring crude oil prices linked to tensions in the Middle East pushed wholesale inflation to its highest level in nearly three years.
Kagome announced on May 14th that it will temporarily redesign several ketchup products by reducing printed packaging areas and adopting mostly transparent labels as worsening tensions in the Middle East continue to disrupt supplies of white ink and other petroleum-based packaging materials across Japan.
ENEOS Holdings announced that a tanker operated by one of its group companies has successfully passed through the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East.
The impact of Japan’s growing naphtha shortage is spreading across a widening range of industries, raising concerns about manufacturing, logistics, and even daily consumer life.
The “ink shock” caused by tensions in the Middle East is beginning to spread across Japan’s food packaging industry, prompting manufacturers to simplify designs and reduce ink usage as concerns grow over naphtha supplies and rising printing costs.
A tanker carrying approximately 45,000 kiloliters of crude oil from Azerbaijan arrived in Japan on May 12th, marking the first time Azerbaijani crude has reached the country as the effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz continues.