Overview
- The mandate, which took effect Wednesday, covers about 1.5 million public vehicles and targets savings of roughly 3,000 barrels of oil per day.
- Officials will step up checks and can discipline repeat violators, while electric and hydrogen cars, along with some disability and maternity cases, are exempt.
- Private firms are urged to join voluntarily, with Samsung adopting a 10-day rotation from Thursday and SK moving to a five-day plan next week, and a shift from the current Level 2 alert to Level 3 could make restrictions mandatory.
- To cut liquefied natural gas use, the government will raise coal and nuclear output, relax coal-plant limits on days with low fine dust, and restart five reactors now in maintenance.
- Resource officials said they are preparing naphtha export limits this week to protect petrochemical feedstock, and President Lee backed price caps, possible fuel-tax relief, and an extra budget to cushion households and industry.