Japan could exercise the right to collective self-defense if an attack on a friendly country were to cause an energy shortage here, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in reference to two security bills his administration has submitted to the Diet.

Japan would exercise the right "in the event of occurrence of shortage of daily commodities and disruption of lifelines stemming from electricity shortage, cases that pose critical impacts on people's lives," Abe said Monday in a plenary session of the Upper House.

Abe was apparently referring to a possible dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces for minesweeping operations should the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East be closed, a vital sea lane for crude oil.