The tsunami that attacked Japan and caused damage and casualties on a national level, also had a heavy toll on its economy. In an attempt to ward off the adverse ramifications, the bank of Japan doubled its assets purchased and pumped 183$ billion into the financial markets in an attempt to stabilize them, as reported by Bloomberg.
In the mean time the profit margin on gasoline in Asia has surged due to the turmoil in the Middle East (among other reasons).
The tsunami attack on Japan caused the world’s third largest importer of crude oil to shut down 11 reactors and shut or disrupted oil supplies from refineries that account for nearly 29% of Japan’s processing capacity.
This means that this recent turmoil might pressure to raise premiums on oil in Asia as Japan’s energy capacity declined.