South Korea, the world’s second-largest buyer of LNG, boosted its imports of the chilled fuel by 13.5 percent in December year-on-year, according to the customs data.
The country imported 4.03 million mt of LNG in December, as compared to 3.55 million mt in the corresponding month the year before.
It is expected that the demand for LNG for power generation will continue to rise due to the colder-than-usual temperatures in the midst of the heating season.
South Korea paid about US$1.55 billion for December imports, 3.1 percent down year-on-year, the data showed.
The world’s largest LNG exporter, Qatar, remained the dominant source of South Korean imports with 1.3 million mt of the chilled fuel imported from Qatar in December.
Australia was replaced as the second largest exporter to South Korea by Malaysia that exported 653,332 mt, while imports from Australia reached 547,049 mt during the month.
The remaining volumes imported into South Korea were sourced from Oman, Indonesia, Russia, Nigeria, Brunei, Papua New Guinea, United Kingdom, Norway, and the United States.
LNG World News Staff