U.S. crude oil transported through the Panama Canal has arrived in Korea for the first time since September 2022, as repeated blockades of the Strait of Hormuz amid escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East drive a reshaping of energy supply routes. As the government pushes to diversify energy supply chains, the Panama Canal route—previously avoided due to cost concerns—has been reopened, and crude supply through the Red Sea is also becoming visible, signaling a full-scale restructuring of Korea's energy procurement system.
According to industry sources on the 20th, the Aframax-class tanker Sea Turtle, carrying crude oil for GS Caltex, entered the port of Yeosu on the 19th. Aframax-class vessels are mid-sized ships with a capacity of 80,000 to 120,000 tons, capable of accessing narrow waterways and shallow ports that Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) with 300,000-ton capacity cannot reach.
The Sea Turtle loaded crude oil at the Port of Houston in Texas, passed through the Panama Canal, and arrived in Korea about a month later. The tanker is reported to have carried approximately 800,000 barrels of crude oil.
According to vessel tracking data provider Kpler, this marks the first shipment of crude oil from the U.S. Gulf of Mexico to Korea via the Panama Canal in about three years and seven months since September 2022. In normal times when the Strait of Hormuz was open, Korean refiners had mainly imported crude oil from the Middle East via VLCCs.
Because fully loaded VLCCs cannot pass through the shallow Panama Canal, importing U.S. crude required loading it onto VLCCs and crossing the Atlantic Ocean, detouring around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa. However, as the U.S.-Iran war disrupted shipping routes through the Middle East, the Panama Canal has emerged once again as an alternative.
The government is also accelerating supply chain diversification, declaring that "the era of relying on a single source (the Middle East) for cheap supply is over." Industry and Trade Minister Kim Jung-kwan recently stressed that "even after this conflict ends, we plan to maintain our policy of expanding non-Middle Eastern crude oil imports and diversifying transport routes."
Following the Sea Turtle, a Suezmax-class tanker capable of loading approximately 1 million barrels has also signed a contract with Korea and recently arrived at the entrance of the Panama Canal after departing from Houston.
The Red Sea route, which the government had once advised against using, is also being reactivated. A VLCC operated by SK Shipping loaded crude oil at the Port of Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, passed through the Red Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, and is currently navigating the Indian Ocean, with arrival in Korea expected in about two weeks.
