Asean countries are considering strategic oil storage after a proposal for joint stockpiling from South Korea, which hopes to pass on technical expertise. The proposed stockpiles would be in Southeast Asian countries and could use crude from the region's producers, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, or from Middle East producers, said Lee Won-Gul, South Korea's vice-minister for commerce, industry and energy.
Tokyo and Seoul, both required to hold reserves as members of the International Energy Agency (IEA), have been pushing others in Asia to build up government reserves, sharing the burden of keeping stocks in case of sudden outages. Analysts said an emergency supply buffer was a good idea, but saw little interest from poorer Southeast Asian nations.