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Article: Middle East lifts market share, again.
- Article from:
- MEED Middle East Economic Digest
- Article date:
- November 13, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 MEED Middle East Economic Digest. All Rights Reserved. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IF Japanese policy planners have one abiding anxiety, it is the country's acute reliance on imported energy. Energy security tops the list of priorities in Japan's long-term energy strategy, but is proving painfully difficult to achieve. The reason is obvious enough: Japan depends on imports for 80 per cent of its energy and a staggering 99 per cent of its oil supplies. This is a far higher percentage than any other leading industrialised country.
Oil accounts for about 55 per cent of primary energy supply but increasing amounts of it come from sources that have delivered rude shocks in the past. The 1973 oil crisis, its 1979 successor and sudden price surges at ...