Seoul, March 24 – The South Korean government will strictly enforce a mandatory five-day vehicle rotation system for the public sector in response to potential disruptions in oil supply amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East, while also implementing additional energy-saving measures, the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment said on Tuesday.
Starting Wednesday, the government will intensify monitoring of the public sector's compliance with the license plate-based rationing system, under which cars are divided into five groups based on the last digit of their license plate numbers, and each group is prohibited from driving on a designated weekday, according to the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment, Yonhap News Agency reported.
The system has been in place but has been loosely enforced. Electric and hydrogen vehicles are exempt from these restrictions.
In detail, the ministry will distribute a detailed guideline on the public sector's implementation of the system and will push for penalties against public institutions that fail to comply with the rules.
Approximately 1.5 million vehicles will be subject to these stricter rules, and the measure is expected to help the country save about 3,000 barrels of crude oil every day, according to the ministry. South Korea's daily crude oil consumption stands at around 2.8 million barrels, with about half of the volume used for transportation.
The government will advise the private sector to voluntarily participate in the program amid growing uncertainties surrounding crude oil supplies, and will consider making the system mandatory for the private sector as well if a Level 3 national resource crisis alert is issued for oil supply.
The ministry said that it decided to adopt such a system after the government raised the alert last week over a possible disruption in crude oil supply by a notch to Level 2 in South Korea's four-tier national resource security crisis warning system.
It will also ask the top 50 companies in terms of oil consumption to devise energy-saving plans and provide incentives to those who meet energy consumption reduction targets while calling on public institutions and large corporations to temporarily adjust working hours to help even out traffic demand for effective energy consumption.
South Korea last implemented a mandatory vehicle rotation system for the private sector in 1991 in response to the oil supply crisis sparked by the Gulf War.
Additionally, the government will ease restrictions on coal-fired power generation on days with low levels of fine particulate matter and will push for the swift resumption of operation of five nuclear reactors that are currently under maintenance as part of efforts to reduce the consumption of liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is also affected by the Middle East crisis.
