Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates together owned about 13.8 million barrels (2.19 million kilolitres) of crude oil at end-December in Japan's semi-national stockpiles, unchanged from the previous month, data from the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy showed on Thursday.

** The Japanese government lends crude storage capacity for free to state-owned Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC), under which they can store up to 14.47 million barrels (2.3 million kl)

** There is no breakdown for barrels between the two companies. In return for providing free storage, Japan gets a priority claim on the stockpiles in case of emergency and treats them as quasi-government inventory, counting half of the barrels as part of its national strategic crude reserves

(Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri) ((osamu.tsukimori@thomsonreuters.com, +813 6441 1857, Reuters Messaging: osamu.tsukimori.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net;))