Energy outlook of Japan: A economic and econometric analysis

Japan is a country that started its industrial movements in the beginning of the 20th century. Thanks to its existing coal resources, this country met the energy it needed and took a certain distance on the path of development by improving its industry before 1950. However, Japan's coal resources were not sufficient to make rapid strides towards industrialization. In this case, the large amount of cheap oil that was injected into the world markets after 1950 allowed Japan to make a great leap forward in industrialization. It has found the opportunity to develop its industries with oil imported from the Middle East and Indonesia with tankers with a carrying capacity of 500 million tons, and thus, it has taken its place among the countries of the world. In this study, causality analysis proposed by Toda and Yamamoto (1995) was used to examine the relationship between Japan's real import level and oil consumption. After the econometric analysis, a bidirectional causality relationship was determined. Japan's oil demand, import and consumption have moved in direct proportion. In addition, in the axis of the study, Japan's energy policy, energy supply security, liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand, energy infrastructure investments, transportation of energy resources within the country, the logistics and the effect of pipelines, the functions of sea routes and unloading ports in oil demand will be examined. This study clarifies the transformation of Japan's renewable energy transformation strategy around the axis of hydrogen economy. The bidirectional causality relationship between energy consumption and import is also consistent with the hydrogen economy. For the first time, the study contributed to the literature by addressing Japan's energy consumption and imports from an interdisciplinary perspective such as transportation, logistics, economy, energy geopolitics, foreign policy, hydrogen economy, energy economics, and econometrics.