Kuwait's crude oil exports to Japan rose 16.1 percent in June from a year earlier to 6.29 million barrels, or 210,000 barrels per day (bpd), for the fifth consecutive monthly gain, the government said Tuesday.

Kuwait remained Japan's fourth-biggest oil supplier last month since overtaking Iran in March, providing 6.5 percent of the country's total crude imports, compared with 5.9 percent in the same month of last year, the Natural Resources and Energy Agency said in a preliminary report. Japan's overall imports of crude oil in the reporting month increased 6.0 percent year-on-year to 96.84 million barrels (3.23 million bpd) for the fifth straight month of growth.

Shipments from the Middle East stood at 2.72 million bpd and accounted for 84.2 percent of the total, down 1.9 percentage points from a year before. Saudi Arabia remained Japan's biggest oil supplier, with imports from the kingdom rising 7.1 percent from a year earlier to 985,000 bpd, followed by the United Arab Emirates with 650,000 bpd, down 27.3 percent. Qatar ranked third with 352,000 bpd, up 8.7 percent, and Iran fifth with 208,000 bpd, up 6.8 percent.

Although Japan has secured a waiver from US financial sanctions against Iran in return for cutting its imports of Iranian crude oil, its imports of Iranian oil jumped 56.8 percent from May's 128,000 bpd. The Japanese parliament last month approved a bill to allow the government to provide insurance cover up to a value of USD 7.6 billion for each tanker carrying Iranian crude bound for Japan.

The legislation enables the world's No.3 oil consumer to continue importing Iranian oil even after new European Union (EU) sanctions against Iran starting from July 1, which ban insurance firms of EU countries from covering Iran's exports.

Resources-poor is in need of more energy from abroad as most of its 50 workable nuclear reactors are currently idled in the aftermath of the radiation accident in March 2011 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was triggered by the massive earthquake and tsunami.