A Middle East war now in its seventh month is reshaping how South Korea secures natural resources. The government said it would move away from buying what it needs on time based on price and efficiency, and instead spread supplier countries, shipping routes, contract structures and stockpiles in advance to build a supply chain that holds up in a crisis. Starting with crude oil, about 70% of which comes from the Middle East, the government aims to raise the non-Middle East share to more than 50% by 2035.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy held the sixth Resource Security Council meeting on the 23rd, chaired by Minister Kim Jung-kwan, and reviewed and finalized four items: the first Basic Plan for Resource Security, a revision to the fifth Petroleum Stockpiling Plan, a plan for designating critical minerals, and the first Critical Minerals Stockpiling Plan. It is the first statutory basic plan drawn up since the Special Act on National Resource Security took effect in February last year, and it sets the direction of resource security policy for the 10 years from 2026 through 2035.
The theme running through the plan is a shift from "just-in-time" supply to "just-in-case" preparedness. A resource security assessment the government conducted from June last year through February this year found that supply chain concentration had deepened, with the number of countries supplying crude oil falling since the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies, the assessment found, had also brought in crude with economics and productivity as their first priority. As of 2025, Middle East dependence for crude stood at about 70%, and 61% of total import volume passed through the Strait of Hormuz. In effect, the supply chain was concentrated not only on Middle Eastern oil producers but on a single maritime chokepoint through which the crude arrives.
That is why the government explicitly cited the Middle East war as the immediate trigger for the basic plan. The ministry assessed that responding to the war confirmed how a supply chain concentrated in particular regions and transport routes can threaten household livelihoods and industrial stability. The government also judges that what determines success or failure in a supply chain has shifted from simply how much of a resource has been secured to managing where bottlenecks form, by country and by shipping lane.
Accordingly, the government will raise the non-Middle East share of crude oil to 50% by 2035. That is a roughly 20 percentage point increase from about 30% now, effectively a goal of splitting volumes evenly between Middle East and non-Middle East sources. It will expand imports of crude from the Americas, Europe and Africa, and will also use freight cost subsidies, tiered support based on diversification results, and a special exemption for confirming direct shipment of crude from countries with free trade agreements.
Another way this differs from past diversification measures is that it does not stop at changing supplier countries. The government will shift away from a structure of hurriedly buying substitute crude on the spot market when a crisis hits, toward long-term contracts, and will also draw on government-to-government cooperation with oil producing states. It will support conversion of refining facilities and research and development in refining technology so domestic refineries can process crude even when the grade changes. Because switching supplier countries can raise refiners' costs not only through longer shipping distances but through differences in crude properties, the government intends to address both procurement and refining together.
Kim said on X, formerly Twitter, that day that "the era when you could bring in resources as long as the price was right is over." He added, "In the past you could bring it in if the price was right, but now you have to look after every single detail: where it comes from, by what method, on what route." He also stressed, "For crude, gas and minerals alike, we have to watch and manage them from beginning to end while working out how to secure them stably."
While opening multiple routes for bringing in supplies, the government is also extending how long the country can hold out if a route is blocked. It will add 20 million barrels of petroleum stockpiling capacity by 2030. Since there has been no expansion of stockpiling facilities after the fourth Petroleum Stockpiling Plan covering 2014 to 2025, this effectively restarts storage capacity expansion after more than a decade. The new facilities will hold not only government stockpiles but also volumes under joint international stockpiling arrangements with oil producing countries.
The plan changes not only the volume of stockpiles but their composition. Moving beyond stockpiles centered on fuel oil, it will also secure condensate that can be used to produce naphtha in an emergency. The measure prepares for the possibility that a supply shock from the Middle East would not stop at a shortage of automotive fuel but spread to production disruptions in the domestic petrochemical industry, which uses naphtha as a feedstock.
Gas will also see reduced concentration on any single country. The government plans to keep dependence on any one country below the 30% range. According to the Korea Energy Economics Institute, Qatar's share of domestic liquefied natural gas imports fell to 14.9% last year from 35.5% in 2016. Over the same period, Australia's share rose to 31.4% from 14.0%. Middle East dependence has come down, but the government says it will manage the mix so supply lines do not become concentrated on a particular country again.
The scope of resource security extends beyond oil and gas to materials for advanced industries such as semiconductors and batteries. The government will expand the list of critical minerals to 51 from 38 and increase stockpiled items to 29 from 24. For minerals with especially fragile supply chains, the target stockpiling period will be extended to as long as 365 days from the current 180 days. It will also introduce for the first time a concept of "total national available inventory," which counts not only public stockpiles but also corporate inventories and recycled feedstock to gauge volumes that could actually be put to work in domestic industry during a crisis.
The question is whether a costly diversification policy can be sustained after the war ends. Non-Middle East crude can carry higher shipping costs than Middle East grades, and processing different crude types requires investment in refining facilities. If the international situation stabilizes, companies may have a stronger incentive to return to existing supply chains with better economics. That is why the government wrote the creation of a resource security fund into the basic plan as a separate task. It plans to restructure related revenues and expenditures and use the fund for projects requiring long-term investment, including securing critical minerals, petroleum and mineral stockpiling, R&D and workforce training.
Kim also said, "When a war breaks out and a crisis hits, everyone says resource security matters and budgets increase, but once the war ends and things improve, people may start asking whether this is really necessary." He added, "We will build a solid financial foundation so that resource procurement policy is not shaken by year-to-year budget conditions."
