South Korean President Lee Myung-bak will visit major oil producing countries in the Middle East next month. Lee will visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over four days starting Feb. 7 to secure "stable sources of energy," his office said in a statement quoted by Reuters. According to the presidential Blue House Saudi Arabia is South Korea's largest source of crude, accounting for around a third of the country's imports, and Qatar and the UAE its third and fifth largest respectively. South Korea, the world's fifth-largest oil importer, sourced some 87 percent of its total crude imports from the Middle East last year.
