South Korea’s Oct LNG imports down 15 pct YoY

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports into South Korea, the world’s second-largest buyer of the fuel, dropped 15 percent in October, according to the customs data.

The country imported 2.76 million mt of LNG in October as compared to 3.25 million mt in the corresponding month the year before.

Qatar regained its position as the dominant supplier of LNG to South Korea after Australia took over as the country’s top supplier within a month in September.

The world’s largest exporter supplied 0.85 million mt to South Korea in October, However, Qatari imports fell by 0.32 million mt or 27 percent on year.

Qatar is still by far the largest supplier to South Korea looking at the whole year with 9.1 million mt supplied in the January-October period.

Indonesian volumes rose last month by 16 percent to 0.42 million mt while Australian LNG supplies to South Korea dropped 24.5 percent on year to 0.40 million mt.

The remaining volumes imported into South Korea last month were sourced from USA, Russia, Oman, Brunei, Malaysia and Peru.

In the January-October period, South Korea imported 30 million mt of LNG as compared to 26 million mt in the same period last year.

South Korea is expected to continue boosting its imports of the chilled fuel for power generation as part of a plan to reduce reliance on coal and nuclear plants.

LNG World News Staff