SEOUL: South Korea imported 815,447 tonnes of crude oil from Iran in July, up 38 percent from a year ago, preliminary data from the Korea Customs Service showed on Thursday.

The amount is equivalent to 5.98 million barrels, according to a Reuters calculation.

The world's fifth-largest crude buyer imported a total of 11.16 million tonnes of crude last month, against 10.74 million tonnes imported in the same month a year ago.

Final data for South Korea's crude imports for July will be published later this month by state-run Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC) and is considered the industry standard.