{"id":615291,"date":"2026-04-18T15:31:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T15:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/615291\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T15:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T15:31:15","slug":"naphtha-crunch-bites-japanese-companies-despite-pms-assurances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/615291\/","title":{"rendered":"Naphtha crunch bites Japanese companies despite PM&#8217;s assurances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"ArticleTag_articleTag__P1Zo7\" href=\"https:\/\/asia.nikkei.com\/business\/business-trends\" data-trackable=\"primary-tag\" data-dark-mode=\"false\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Business trends<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"NewsArticleHeader_newsArticleHeaderSubtitle__ZlvPp\" data-trackable=\"subhead\" data-dark-mode=\"false\">From bathtubs to plastic bottles, prices are rising and output is falling<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"image-main img-fluid ImageNew_imageNewImageResponsive__f1VTu\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/https:\/\/cms-image-bucket-productionv3-ap-northeast-1-a7d2.s3.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com\/images\/3\/9.jpeg\" alt=\"20260417 Japan\" width=\"780\" height=\"auto\" loading=\"eager\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"NewsArticleCaption_newsArticleCaption__fxo8v\" data-trackable=\"caption\" data-dark-mode=\"false\" style=\"display:block\">Shortages of petroleum derivatives\u00a0are pushing up prices for everything from\u00a0bathtubs to laundry detergent to mouthwash in Japan. (Source photos by Toto\/Kyodo and Hideki Yoshikawa)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>AKANE OKUTSU and YURIKA YONEDA<\/p>\n<p data-dark-mode=\"false\" class=\"Paragraph_paragraph__2p1wC\">TOKYO &#8212; Concerns about a shortage of naphtha, a petroleum derivative that goes into a wide range of plastics and other products, is forcing Japanese manufacturers to raise prices and\u00a0cut production despite Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi&#8217;s assurances that the country has\u00a0four months&#8217; supply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Business trends From bathtubs to plastic bottles, prices are rising and output is falling Shortages of petroleum derivatives\u00a0are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[233992,64,63,184774,99,10830,44404,25453,164,54395,285174,72557],"class_list":["post-615291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-assurances","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bites","tag-business","tag-companies","tag-crunch","tag-despite","tag-economy","tag-japanese","tag-naphtha","tag-pms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}