The South Korean government announced to extend the tax reduction policy on petroleum products until the end December. This policy has been initially scheduled to end at the end October, but is extended by two months to address domestic inflation and the economy. This is the 18th time for the government to extend the policy. The tax reduction rates shrank from 10% to 7% for gasoline and from 15% to 10% for gasoil and LPG.

A surge in last minutes demand within South Korea is expected within October ahead of the shrink of tax reduction rate from November. Market participants also pointed out that it was possible that export volumes from South Korea would decline.