- SEOUL: South Korean President Lee Myung-bak will visit Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries in the Middle East next month amid growing pressure from US to join sanctions against Tehran by cutting crude oil imports from Iran.
Lee will visit the Kingdom, Qatar and the UAE over four days starting Feb. 7 to secure “stable sources of energy,” his office said in a statement.
According to the presidential Blue House, Saudi Arabia is South Korea’s largest source of crude, accounting for around a third of the country’s imports, and Qatar and the UAE its third and fifth largest respectively.
South Korea, the world’s fifth-largest oil importer, sourced some 87 percent of its total crude imports from the Middle East last year.
Earlier this month, a team of State and Treasury Departments envoys met officials in Seoul seeking its commitment to cutting imports from Iran.
Despite the pressure from the United States, South Korean refiners have agreed to buy slightly more Iran crude in 2012 than they did in 2011, according to company and industry sources.
