Seoul (Platts)--23Mar2015/320 am EDT/720 GMT

South Korea's imports of Iranian crude oil in February plunged 50.3% year on year to 4.043 million barrels, or an average 144,393 b/d, from 8.140 million barrels a year earlier, data released Monday, March 23, by state-run Korea National Oil Corp showed.

But this was more than double from the 1.995 million barrels of crude imported from Iran in January.

South Korea paid $176.8 million for Iranian crude imports in February, down from $859.5 million a year earlier and $125.7 million in January on lower crude oil prices.

The country paid an average $43.74/barrel for Iranian crude in February, down from $106/b a year earlier and $63.04/b in January.

KNOC data also showed the country's imports of Iraqi crude jumped 63.6% year on year to 8.788 million barrels, or an average 313,857 b/d in February, from 5.371 million barrels a year earlier.

But this was down 17.2% from 10.613 million barrels imported in January.

In total, South Korea imported 79.987 million barrels, or 2.86 million b/d, of crude in February, up 8.1% from 74.011 million barrels a year earlier.

The February volume was down 5.6% from 84.703 million barrels imported in January.

Meanwhile, South Korea's oil consumption in February was 68.102 million barrels, or an average 2.43 million b/d, up 5.8% from 64.364 million barrels a year ago.

But this was down 7.7% from 73.780 million barrels in January, KNOC data showed.

South Korea's refined oil product exports increased 9.4% year on year to 35.847 million barrels in February, or an average 1.28 million b/d, from 32.779 million barrels a year earlier.

But this was down 7.3% from 38.675 million barrels in January.

South Korea refined 78.577 million barrels of crude in February, or an average 2.81 million b/d, up 14.4% from 68.694 million barrels a year earlier. But this was down 8.7% from 86.063 million barrels in January.

--Charles Lee, newsdesk@platts.com
--Edited by Irene Tang, irene.tang@platts.com

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