SEOUL (Reuters) – SK Innovation, the owner of South Korea’s top refiner SK Energy and petrochemical maker SK Incheon Petrochem, has been replacing Iranian condensate with crude oil from other countries including Qatar and Russia, a top official said on Monday. “The share of Iranian condensate was high, but that has been replaced with crude oil from Russia, Kazakhstan and Qatar and we also have been diversifying our crude sources,” Choi Nam-kyu, chief executive of SK Incheon Petrochem, told a news conference. The switch to other crude oils comes as South Korea and other Iranian oil buyers stopped buying oil from Iran after the U.S. government announced to end sanctions waivers from early May. Executives speaking at a company briefing also forecast an improvement in refining margins in the second half, and said the company was continuing talks on battery joint ventures. Refining margins would be helped by demand […]