SOUTH KOREA PERSPECTIVE

Seoul watches the meter run. Fuel prices in the South Korean capital have broken through the symbolic 2,000-won-per-liter barrier, a psychological threshold last breached during the 2022 Ukraine crisis. The increase is directly tied to Iranian tensions squeezing global supply. For the 25 million residents of the Seoul metropolitan area, that number translates into daily trade-offs: drive or take the subway, deliver or cancel, heat or save. South Korean media frames the crisis with a mix of industrial pragmatism and existential anxiety -- the country imports virtually all its energy with no credible short-term alternative supplier. A Korea Times article illustrates an unexpected side effect: in Pakistan, soaring prices are pushing consumers toward electric motorbikes, creating a substitution market where Korean battery makers could rush in. Seoul reads the energy crisis through a dual lens: the consumer's immediate pain and the medium-term industrial opportunity. The battery and solar chaebols see the $150 barrel as the best marketing campaign ever conceived for the energy transition -- but Gangnam's taxi drivers are counting every won.