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The story
An article explaining how the naphtha supply situation has shifted — from an energy expert’s initial worry that “ships aren’t coming” to the current reality that “imports are happening, but prices are too high to buy easily” — became a hot topic on 5ch. In the thread, some questioned the expert’s credibility, noting that earlier predictions like “it’ll be done for by June” ultimately missed the mark, while others countered that physical supply never actually stopped, since import routes outside the Strait of Hormuz were secured, even as procurement costs rose. The discussion ranged into the real-world retail price of kerosene and how general trading companies profit during price hikes — touching on points that can’t be settled with a simple “shortage or not” framing.
Has the Naphtha Shortage Been Resolved? From “Ships Aren’t Coming” to “Too Expensive to Buy”… An Energy Expert Reveals the Current Situation – Minkabu (Magazine)
Haruhiko Sakaino
2026.11.14
Source: mag.minkabu.jp / Original article here
What people said
Did he take a whole lap in Tsum Tsum or what, lol (mocking jab at the "it'll choke" prediction — 詰む/tsumu sounds like the mobile game Tsum Tsum)
If an employee says it's bad, it's really bad; if they say "don't worry, we'll definitely import it," then supply will be fine.
Price is a different story, though.
If prices get too high, people naturally switch to substitutes.
But if someone actually tells you it's bad, you'll just turn around and say they're lying.
Price is the real issue here.
Same with rare earths.
Trading companies make more money when prices go up.
Same goes for the oil industry.
they quietly shrank the contents again (more "shrinkflation").
Seriously? I'm boycotting.
Calbee: "To make up for it, we added more air!"
It's not a shortage — it's hoarding and stock-withholding caused by the naphtha price spike.
What's with all the excuses?
That guy's no expert at all.
Go on then, tell us exactly how they pulled off hoarding and storing it all — spit it out.
Yesterday's national news reported mobile kerosene vendors charging 160 yen per liter.
There was even security-camera footage of a kerosene thief.
Outdoor kerosene tanks don't usually have locks on the fill caps, since delivery staff — not just the homeowner — need to be able to fill them.
there's no way it should end up too expensive to buy.
Maybe it's going through five layers of wholesalers, like rice did two years ago?
guess they're not putting much effort into their programs.
He's an energy expert, not an expert in actual procurement or securing import routes.
Huh? We already knew that. Throwing out extreme stuff like "tsum" means he's done as an expert (a jab at his earlier "it'll choke" prediction, likened to the Tsum Tsum game).
He said it would choke if supply kept not coming in.
People mocking him keep twisting that into "he guaranteed it would definitely choke no matter what," but that's not what happened.
It didn't choke because alternate routes around Hormuz and imports from other countries kicked in.
It's just that prices rose because the cheap sources became unavailable.
"It'll choke if nothing changes" is such an obvious thing to say, I don't even know why he bothered.
Classic "whatever you say, he'll spin his way out of it" (a meme referencing cult spokesman Fumihiro Joyu's evasive rhetoric).
Even with product price hikes, they can't keep up with the weak yen and rising material costs.
Pretty dire situation, lol.
Probably no winter bonus this year.
Ah… so it's happening where we can't see it…
>Probably no winter bonus this year
If it's a major company, bonus talks would already be settled by now — is this just spin?
This old guy, lol.
If it were just a clog, there'd be no reason for prices to keep rising even after it cleared.
Exactly — believing that stuff was bound to cost you later.
I'd quietly been stockpiling on my own judgment just before the "naphtha shock" hit the news, and it really paid off.
So how's he going to own up to the big lie that it didn't choke in June?
Background and Key Points of This Topic
Naphtha is a fraction derived from crude oil and serves as a raw material for plastics and other petrochemical products. The article’s central question — “has the shortage been resolved?” — gets answered with a twist: “the ships (logistics) are arriving again, but prices have risen, making it hard to buy.” In the thread, some mocked the expert because the “it’ll choke by June” prediction floated earlier in the year never came true, while others countered that it didn’t choke precisely because import routes outside the Strait of Hormuz were secured — at the cost of higher procurement prices. In other words, “the shortage being resolved” and “prices coming down” are two separate issues, and conflating physical supply with price leads the discussion to talk past itself. The thread also touched on an economic angle — how general trading companies and distribution middlemen behave during price-hike phases — adding complexity beyond a simple yes/no on whether imports have stopped. Political bickering and personal attacks in the thread were excluded here as tangential to the main discussion.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Flash+) thread “Has the Naphtha Shortage Been Resolved? From “Ships Aren’t Coming” to “Too Expensive to Buy”… An Energy Expert Reveals the Current Situation.”
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