Japanese power utilities received 5.32 million tonnes of LNG In January, an increase of 2.5 percent on the same month a year ago and more than 5 percent higher than in December 2012.
The 10 power utilities received 5.19MT of LNG in January 2012 and 5.02MT in December, according to figures from the Japanese Federation of Electric Power Companies.
Of the 5.32MT of LNG received in January 5.16MT tonnes was actually burned to generate power.
The utilities from Hokkaido in the north to Kyushu in the south, and the new importer of LNG on the island of Okinawa, use about 70 percent of Japan's LNG imports which last year amounted to 87.31 million tonnes last year.
The balance is supplied in regasified form to domestic and industrial customers by the more than 200 city-gas companies, including leading LNG importers such as Tokyo Gas and Osaka Gas.
Japan's LNG usage for power generation would be higher if had more combined-cycle gas-fired power stations and is also being constrained by its import infrastructure operating at near full capacity.
Tokyo Electric Power, owner of the stricken Fukushima nucldear plant, is the biggest Japanese LNG buyer.
It purchased 18 million tonnes of LNG in the past 12 months, just under one fifth of all Japanese cargo deliveries which have risen since the disaster at Fukushima.
Currently only two of the nation's 54 nuclear reactors are in operation and LNG has been one of the main replacement fuels for power generation, though coal and oil use has also risen.
Japan's nuclear power plant utilisation rate was 5.3 percent in January compared with 10.3 percent in the same month a year ago, the federation said.
