Middle Eastern crude supply and demand are recovering, but the justification for dispatching troops to Hormuz is lacking

The United States is pressuring South Korea to deploy troops to the Strait of Hormuz, citing the supply of crude oil from the Middle East as its rationale, but a look at domestic crude oil import conditions suggests that argument is not sufficiently convincing. According to a report by Kyunghyang Shinmun, South Korea has been diversifying its crude oil import sources from Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kazakhstan, Libya, and others, and imports from some countries are increasing toward this year's target volume. In particular, crude oil from Oman has already exceeded the promised scale. On the other hand, imports of crude oil from Kazakhstan remain at a low implementation rate compared with the plan, as major import routes have been blocked due to the RussiaUkraine war. Crude oil from Libya has been coming in steadily since its recent resumption, and overall the supplydemand situation is being assessed as improving.