South Korea’s June LNG imports rise almost 40 pct YoY

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports into South Korea, the world’s second-largest buyer of the fuel, rose by 39.6 percent in June year-on-year.

The country imported 3.46 million mt of LNG in June as compared to 2.48 million mt in the corresponding month the year before, according to the customs data.

The data shows that South Korea paid about $1.4 billion for LNG imports last month.

Qatar, the world’s biggest LNG exporter, remained the dominant source of South Korean imports with 1.27 million mt of the chilled fuel imported from Qatar in June,  up by 14.4 percent on year.

Australia was the second-largest LNG supplier to Korea last month with 638,165 mt, a rise of 243 percent as compared to June 2016.

The remaining volumes imported into South Korea were sourced from Indonesia, Malaysia, Oman, USA, Brunei and Angola.

To remind, South Korea’s Kogas reported earlier this week a 1.6 percent decrease in its domestic natural gas sales in June.

Kogas said it sold 1.93 million mt of LNG equivalent last month, as compared to 1.96 million mt in June 2016.

The company operates in total 74 LNG storage tanks in South Korea and overseas. It imports approximately 96 percent of Korea’s LNG demand via its four LNG terminals, namely Incheon, Pyeongtaek, Tongyeong and Samcheok.

LNG World News Staff