Markets

South Korea says to cut city gas rate by 5.9pc on average on Jan 1

Published December 30, 2014 Updated December 30, 2014 05:56am

SEOUL: South Korea's energy ministry said on Tuesday that it will lower retail prices of natural gas for household and business, dubbed 'city gas', on January 1, 2015 by 5.9 percent on average or lower than its original plan.

The move comes to reflect weakening global gas prices, the ministry said in a statement. City gas price has a 2.06 percent weight on South Korea's consumer price index, statistics data shows.

Earlier this month the energy ministry in the world's second biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) importer after Japan unveiled its plans to cut the gas price by around 5 percent on average in January. Seoul imported 32.87 million tonnes of LNG equivalent in the first 11 months of this year, down 8.4 percent from a year ago, as its overall gas consumption dropped due to rising power supply from nuclear plants and slow economic growth.

Copyright Reuters, 2014