Kazakhstan reported an oil export to North Korea valued at USD$44 million in September, a USD$5 million increase from the previous month, the ITC trade map shows.

The exports bring the combined value of three months of shipments to over USD$100 million, far in excess of what neighboring China and Russia reported as their exports for the whole of 2018.

But it’s unclear if the Kazakhstan authorities are misreporting or mislabeling the shipments, which might actually be headed for South Korea: exporters sometimes confuse the two Koreas in their documentation.

Neither the Kazakhstan