Roughly $10 billion will be invested in liquefied natural gas infrastructure projects worldwide by Japan’s public and private sectors.

Local media cited Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry as saying Japan intended to double down on its commitment made two years ago to bolster its energy supply chain and reduce reliance on the Middle East.

“On top of Japan’s commitment two years ago of investing or financing more than $10 billion in energy supply chains, we are making a fresh commitment of additional and collective $10 billion funding from both public and private sectors,” Japanese minister Isshu Sugawara told delegates at the annual LNG Producer-Consumer Conference in Tokyo on Thursday.

Wood Mackenzie research director Nicholas Browne said Japan’s announcement that the additional $10 billion would mainly be invested in new and developing markets in the India sub-continent and South-East Asia reflected a shift in priorities.

“This is an evolution from the spending plan from two years ago which was focused on encouraging new supply sources and has been largely realised through Japanese investments in Arctic 2 and Mozambique LNG,” he said.

"This new $10 billion will include public-sector financing from JBIC (the Japan Bank for International Cooperation), as well as from JOGMEC, the state-backed Japan Oil, Gas & Metals National Corporation, in addition to purely commercial groups such as trading houses and banks. The government-owned Nippon Export and Investment Insurance will offer full coverage for LNG-related financing.

“Given the challenging credit rating of many of these markets, having this financing underwritten should reduce the financing costs and help LNG compete with other fuels like coal.”

Local media also noted that Japan intended to train 500 experts in areas such as LNG receiving technology and drafting of environmental regulations, in anticipation of stronger demand.

Japan is currently the world’s largest importer of LNG, importing roughly 83 million tonnes in 2018, largely from Australia, Malaysia, Qatar, Russia and Indonesia.