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South Korea doubles Iran oil imports

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Official data show that South Korea more than doubled its crude oil imports from the Islamic Republic of Iran in February year-on-year.

Citing data from state-run Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC), the Platts weekly reported on Tuesday that South Korea’s crude imports from Iran stood at 8 million 140 thousand barrels or roughly 290 thousand barrels per day (bpd) in February, up from around 4 million barrels in the same period last year.

According to the report, the volume of South Korea’s February oil imports from the Islamic Republic increased more than four times from around 2 million barrels in January.

Earlier this month, South Korea made a first payment of USD 550 million to Iran for oil imports following partial relief in sanctions against the country in line with a nuclear deal inked between Tehran and the P5+1 group – Russia, China, France, Britain, the US and Germany – in Geneva, Switzerland, in November 2013.

Under the interim deal, the six countries agreed to ease some of the existing sanctions against the Islamic Republic in exchange for Iran agreeing to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities during a six-month period.

World oil giants, including Royal Dutch Shell, British Petroleum (BP), Malaysia’s Petronas, Spain’s Repsol, Russia’s second largest oil producer Lukoil, France’s Total and Italy’s Eni, have shown interest in returning to Iran following the partial sanctions relief.

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