Inpex Leads Japan Energy Stocks Lower After Oil Drops

By Megumi Yamanaka and Toshiro Hasegawa

March 3 (Bloomberg) -- Inpex Corp., Japan’s largest oil explorer, dropped for a second day, leading declines among the country’s energy companies after a plunge in crude prices.

Inpex fell 5.8 percent, to close at 589,000 yen in Tokyo, outpacing the 1.1 percent decline in the benchmark Topix index. Nippon Oil Corp., Japan’s biggest refiner, dropped 5.7 percent to close at 428 yen, the biggest decline since Feb. 2,. Nippon Mining Holdings Inc., a refiner and Japan’s biggest copper producer, declined 4.2 percent to close at 320 yen.

Oil traded near $40 a barrel in New York after losing 10 percent yesterday on signs the recession in the world’s largest energy consuming economies is deepening. The future traded at $40.21 at 3:44 p.m. in Tokyo. Mining and oil companies were the two worst performing groups on the benchmark Topix index.

“Oil could drop to the mid-$30s again,” Takeshi Okada, general manger at Mitsui & Co.’s Energy Risk Management Department, said by phone in Tokyo today. “The difficulties in the global economy are now being highlighted.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Megumi Yamanaka in Tokyo at myamanaka@bloomberg.net; Toshiro Hasegawa at thasegawa6@bloomberg.net.