PLATTS - South Korea's crude oil imports from Iran halved in July from a year earlier in the wake of the reimposition of US sanctions, according to preliminary data released by the Korea Customs Service Thursday.

WNN - President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan attended a ceremony to celebrate the completion of construction at the United Arab Emirates' first nuclear power reactor.

PLATTS - For full-year 2017, South Korea's crude imports from its biggest supplier Saudi Arabia fell 1.7% to 319.02 million barrels, compared with 324.45 million barrels in the previous year, customs data showed. On the contrary, South Korea has imported 1.77 million mt, or around 13 million barrels, of crude from the US in 2017, about four times higher than in 2016. Shipments from Russia grew to 140,000 b/d last year from 112,000 b/d in 2016.

PLATTS - Chinese imports of LNG in 2017 totaled 37.89 million mt, up 48.4% year on year, while imports by South Korea totaled 36.51 million mt, up 10.81% year on year.

PLATTS - South Korea aims to boost the portion of LNG in its electricity generation mix to 18.8% in 2030 from an estimated 16.9% this year as part of efforts to reduce its heavy reliance on coal and nuclear, the energy ministry said.

FT - OCI — the world’s third-largest polysilicon maker by capacity and South Korea’s biggest — this month reported a 3,373 per cent increase in operating profit to Won78.7bn ($72m) for the July-September quarter, its best performance in five years. Rival Hanwha Chemical saw third-quarter net profit jump 25 per cent to a record Won252bn. 

The world's fifth-largest crude importer has continued to buy more crude oil from Iran since sanctions were lifted in January. Shipments of Iranian crude more than doubled to 7.22 million tonnes, or 248,616 bpd, in the January-July period of 2016 from a year earlier, according to its customs office data.