Energy inventories: emerging Asia’s vulnerability as Hormuz crisis persists

As rival US and Iranian blockades of the Strait of Hormuz continue to destabilize global energy flows, oil-importing nations are rolling out emergency conservation measures. For some Asian markets, a lack of oil and gas inventory is making the situation increasingly precarious.

We’ve charted figures from the Joint Organisations Data Initiative* (JODI) that measure domestic oil stocks across the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific.

These visualizations use a “days of demand covered” basis: the absolute volume of stored hydrocarbons is divided by the 12-month average refinery intake (for crude oil), demand (refined oil products) or gross inland deliveries (natural gas) per day.

As our first chart shows, stocks are particularly low in the Philippines, Thailand and India, which rely on uninterrupted seaborne imports. This leaves their industrial, transport and power sectors highly vulnerable to any sudden supply disruption.

Japan, by contrast, is almost completely reliant on energy imports from the Middle East. However, due to strategic policies initiated after 1970s OPEC embargoes, the country holds vast stocks of crude oil to feed its refineries. Major Eurozone economies hold relatively adequate inventories of oil and refined products, but nothing close to the Japanese level.

We’ve charted JODI’s equivalent figures for natural gas, which again show the vulnerability of India, Thailand and the Philippines.

As the conflict drags on, we’ve also charted data from Lloyds’ List Intelligence, which tracks vessel transit through the Strait of Hormuz. Total passages for oil tankers and LNG vessels have plummeted to just one-fourth of pre-war levels, pushing global refineries to seek out alternative sources of supply.

*JODI is a collaboration between international organizations including the International Energy Agency, United Nations, APEC and Eurostat.

Users can click on the adjacent tab to find “days of demand covered” figures for other refined products, such as gasoline in jet fuel.

Explore our Middle East Geopolitical Risk Dashboard and Early Indicators on Inflation Dashboard to monitor real-time developments.