Locator: 48902JAPAN.
This is a very, very "crude" analysis, and I may have some of
the details wrong and/or greatly simplified, but this is how I
understand the Japan situation with regard to US oil.
Folks may remember this issue -- the right kind of oil. In the big scheme of things, there are two major "types" of oil, "heavy"oil and "light oil." [With or without sulfur.]
Refineries are optimized for specific types of oil.
Most refineries around the world, including the US, are optimized for heavy oil because that's the more common of the two. In fact, that's why the Keystone XL from Canada was promoted by the oil companies: it would have brought heavy oil from Canada to the Gulf coast where US refineries had been converted, at great expense, from "light oil" to "heavy oil" refineries.
The US is one of the major exceptions to having mostly "heavy oil." US shale is "light oil."
The US is now "pushing" American oil on countries like Japan, but those countries, with a long history of importing Mideast oil, have refineries optimized for "heavy oil." So, in fact, due to chokepoints at the refineries, Japan can only "use" / import so much American oil.
Apparently that maximum has now been reached and will continue to max out for the foreseeable future.
Link here. ArgusMedia says the same thing.
By the way, this is why the US oil companies want Venezuelan (heavy) oil, and why Trump has recently allowed Chevron to continue importing Venezuelan oil into this country. Trump's goal is to bring down the price of gasoline in the United States.
