Russia and Japan recently reached an agreement to build a joint liquefied natural gas plant in Vladivostok, Russia. In an e-mail interview, Michael Bradshaw, professor of human geography at the University of Leicester and vice president for Research and Higher Education at the Royal Geographical Society, discussed Russia-Japan energy cooperation.
WPR: What is the status quo of Russia-Japan energy cooperation?
Michael Bradshaw: Russia has only recently become a significant supplier of oil and gas to Japan. The Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 projects have progressively exported oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Japan since 1999, and both have Japanese shareholders. The East Siberia Pacific Ocean pipeline, whose first phase was completed in 2009, will also export oil to Asia. Russia's share of Japan's oil imports has increased from 0.7 percent in 2005 to 6.1 percent in the first half of 2010, making it the largest supplier of oil to Japan outside the Middle East, while LNG from Sakhalin now accounts for 6.5 percent of Japan's total LNG imports. The proximity of these supplies and their avoidance of the choke points of the Straits of Hormuz and Malacca mean that Japan is interested in increasing imports from Russia in the future.