SEOUL, April 15: South Korea has secured supplies of more than 270 million barrels of crude oil via routes unaffected by the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a senior official said on Wednesday.
"I hereby report to the nation that visits to four countries have secured the import of 273 million barrels of crude oil by the end of this year," Kang Hoon-sik, chief of staff to the president, said.
The amount is sufficient for more than three months of South Korea's oil needs, Kang said after he returned from a trip to Kazakhstan, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
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Like many Asian economies, South Korea has faced mounting risks to its energy supplies since US-Israeli attacks on Iran in late February prompted Tehran to effectively close the strait.
Kang said around 60 percent of South Korea's crude oil imports last year transited through the waterway, which the United States began blockading this week.
He said Seoul had also secured an additional 2.1 million tons of naphtha, an important oil-derived component used to make a range of plastic goods.
That figure "(amounts) to roughly one month's worth of imports based on last year's volume", Kang said.
The supplies of both materials "will therefore contribute directly and materially to stabilising domestic supply and demand", he said.
