South Korea imported 185,000 b/d of crude and condensate from Iran in July, up slightly on May and June but down substantially on both the first four months of 2018 (285,000 b/d) and 2017 as a whole, when Korea was Iran’s #3 customer taking 361,000 b/d. Imports can be expected to fall to zero for August as Korea halted loadings of Iranian crude last month under pressure from the US (MEES, 3 August). Part of the reason for the slide in volumes is unrelated to sanctions: until 2017 Korea had been a key buyer of Iranian condensate, but export volumes fell sharply with the startup of the 120,000 b/d first phase of Iran’s Persian Gulf Star (PGS) condensate splitter in April 2017, followed by the 120,000 b/d phase two in February (MEES, 2 March).