Section
Commodities
Oil, gold and emissions traded through Korean venues.
Korea's exchange prices the same gold twice. The retail bar is not the dearer one.
KRX lists 99.99% gold in two sizes: a 1kg bar and a 100g mini. Over 49 sessions the mini closed higher by a median of 0.015 percent — and it closed lower on 22 of them. On five days the two moved in opposite directions.
We measured Korea's two oil prices in August. Ten weeks later the kerosene auction is almost gone.
Our August count put the kerosene auction dark one day in six across six years. Over the 49 sessions to 9 September it was dark 47 times — and petrol and diesel have tripled their own dark rate.
Korea's import bill rose 18% — but rubber jumped 96% and sugar fell 12%
Korea's won-priced import index rose 18.4% over the year to July 2026 — on average. Behind it: synthetic rubber +96% and fuels near +77%, while sugar and dairy fell. The won moved everything alike; the spread is the goods.
Diesel is draining off Korea's oil exchange — and the gap between its two order books isn't a spread
Diesel traded on the KRX oil market fell 23% from 2020 to 2025 while petrol held. And the 'premium' on its negotiated book over its competitive one is a few tenths of a percent that flips sign four days in ten. Not advice.
Korea's oil exchange traded half as much fuel in 2026, and its auction has gone quiet four days in five
Daily volume on KRX's diesel, petrol and kerosene markets has fallen sharply since April 2026 — down as much as 74% year-on-year for diesel — and the exchange's competitive auction increasingly prints no price at all.
Korea's oil exchange prints two prices for the same fuel, and they disagree four days in ten
The KRX oil market quotes two prices per fuel — a competitive-auction average and a negotiated one. Over six years they disagree: the negotiated runs below the auction on 37–46% of days, and the kerosene auction goes dark one day in six.
Korea's import prices rose 9% in the seller's currency and 20% in won. The gap is the exchange rate.
Priced in the currency each contract is written in, Korea's imports cost 9.1% more over the year to June. In won they cost 19.7% more. The 33-point gap between the two indices is not the goods getting dearer — it is the won getting weaker.
Korean gold fell 31%. Trading in it went up, not down.
Korea Exchange gold peaked on 29 January and is down 30.9% since. Turnover in the small, retail-sized 100-gram contract is running 72.3% above 2025's daily average through the whole decline — the fall drew more small buyers in, not fewer.