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South Korea stopped buying crude oil from Iran in August after its refiners lost insurance coverage on ships carrying the fuel from the Persian Gulf nation.

Purchases fell to zero last month, reducing imports from Iran for the first eight months of this year by 34 percent from a year earlier to 5.39 million tons, according to data posted on theCustoms Service’s website today. South Korea bought 1.14 million tons of crude oil, or 36,738 tons a day, from Iran in August 2011.

Iran was the sixth-largest supplier of crude to South Korea last year, accounting for 9.4 percent of its overall oil purchases, Korean government data showed. Iran’s share in Korean oil imports fell to 6.3 percent as of the first eight months of this year.