South Korea unwinds crude diversification strategy as Middle East dependence grows

摘要

South Korea is looking to unwind its crude import diversification strategy as refiners find Middle Eastern inflows highly efficient in times of tight global supply and surging prices, while the country aims to completely phase out Russian crude. The world's No. 4 crude importer has been striving to diversify its crude supply sources for more than a decade. The country's reliance on Middle Eastern crude fell from around 87 of annual refinery feedstock imports in 2011 to around 70 in 2018, according to SP Global Commodity Insights calculations based on data from Korea National Oil Corp. That share dropped to its lowest in 2021 at 60.