Only 11 of the country's 54 nuclear reactors are operating, forcing the world's third-largest importer of oil and top importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to use even more of those fuels to generate power to plug the nuclear shortfall. 

Japan's 10 utilities consumed 216,500 bpd (6.7 million barrels or 1.07 million kilolitres) of crude last month, compared with only 16,000 bpd the year before, data from the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan showed. 

Fuel oil consumption reached 189,000 bpd (933,653 kl), up from 54,000 bpd. 

They also burned the equivalent of 3.90 million tons of LNG last month, compared with 2.97 million tons a year earlier. 

Coal use at power plants declined 1 percent as some quake-damaged coal-fired facilities remained shut.

The prolonged crisis at Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi plant has stirred fears about nuclear safety, leaving local governments wary about granting approvals to restart reactors taken offline for maintenance.     

The government hopes to rebuild public confidence and clear the way to restarting reactors through a series of safety tests at the plants. Tokyo is also reviewing its energy policy, which before the quake was highly dependent on expanding nuclear capacity.

Nuclear power provided only about 9 percent of Japan's electricity last month. The nation's nuclear plant utilization rate fell to a record low of 18.5 percent in October, plunging from 72.3 percent a year earlier. 

The utilities generated 71.28 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in October, down 5.6 percent from a year earlier, in line with expectations for a 5.5 percent fall in a Reuters projection. 

That marked the eighth straight month of year-on-year declines since the massive March quake and tsunami. All of the 10 main power suppliers, which have virtual monopolies in their respective service areas, produced less electricity last month than a year earlier. Some have asked industry and households to preserve power to prevent supply outages. 

Two disaster-hit firms, Tohoku Electric Power and Tokyo Electric Power Co., recorded the sharpest declines in power generation last month among the 10 utilities, down 10.4 percent and 9.1 percent, respectively.