{"id":385826,"date":"2026-04-18T12:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T12:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/385826\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T12:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T12:51:15","slug":"naphtha-crunch-bites-japanese-companies-despite-pms-assurances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/385826\/","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\/nz\/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":385827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[48614,16640,138,8556,33404,127,219,1036,190263,111,139,69,27882],"class_list":{"0":"post-385826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-assurances","9":"tag-bites","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-companies","12":"tag-crunch","13":"tag-despite","14":"tag-economy","15":"tag-japanese","16":"tag-naphtha","17":"tag-new-zealand","18":"tag-newzealand","19":"tag-nz","20":"tag-pms"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}