The imports are part of a plan by the world’s fifth-largest crude importer to reach 40 million barrels this year of inventories called co-stockpiles held by the 12 oil producers and majors. Those are commercial stockpiles over which the government has first option to use in an emergency.

Raising co-stockpiles is part of a plan to boost the countries total reserves to 141 million barrels by 2013.

KNOC has signed a deal with Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) to import 6 million barrels, the state-run entity said in a statement prepared for an assembly hearing. 

The state-run entity also had signed a contract to import 5.3 million barrels from State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR). Those imports were likely to begin next month, a KNOC spokesman said.  

At the end of August, KNOC had 27.4 million barrels of co-stockpile inventory.

The target is to reach 39.9 million barrels by the end of this year.

Separately South Korea runs its own strategic reserves of oil to cope with emergencies.

The government used these reserves under a plan by the International Energy Agency to release stocks to ease a shortage in supply earlier this year.

From the reserves, KNOC released a total of 1.519 million barrels of oil products and 1.948 million barrels of crude oil under an International Energy Agency plan to bolster supplies earlier this year.

According to a KNOC spokesman, most of the release to local refiners was paid back by the refiners’ crude oil and products.

For the country’s own strategic reserves, KNOC said it would buy a small lot of 150,000 barrels of crude oil in early October.

At the end of August, South Korea held 117 million barrels in strategic reserves and had purchased 2.25 million barrels so far this year, 94 percent of the year’s purchase target.

South Korea aims to build the strategic reserves to 141 million barrels at nine locations across the country by 2013.

KNOC expects to conclude the sale of 29 percent of its US Ankor offshore oil project for about $320 million by the end of next month, an industry source with direct knowledge of the matter said. The sale will leave it with a 51 percent stake.

“The sale has been delayed by about a month as more negotiations were needed,” the source said.

While KNOC declined to comment on the sales talks, the state-run entity said in the document that “it was in the process of the partial stake sales to pension funds or to private investors.”

South Korea’s economy ministry in June disclosed the possible deal to pension funds or to private investors.

KNOC owns an 80 percent stake in the Ankor oil producing project in the Gulf of Mexico, while Samsung C&T Corp. <000830.KS> owns the remainder.