South Korea’s oil imports from Iran fell 12 percent in March from a year earlier, customs data showed on Monday, but the monthly intake was still the highest since the country resumed buying Iranian oil in January.
South Korea imported 1.2 million tons of crude oil from Iran in March, or 284,639 barrels per day (bpd), versus 1.37 million tons a year earlier, the data showed.
That was up 23 percent from February and more than a five-fold increase from January as buying has ramped up.
For the first three months, South Korea’s imports of Iranian crude were down 29.8 percent at 2.4 million tons, or 196,303 bpd, compared with 3.45 million tons over the same period last year, according to the data.
Across the five months from November through March, South Korea imported about 117,000 bpd on average of Iranian oil, according to Reuters calculation based on the customs data.