The government on Friday launched an audit into Korea's state-run oil company after discovering that 900,000 barrels of crude oil stored at a local strategic oil storage facility had been sold overseas, the industry ministry said. The audit into the Korea National Oil Corp. (KNOC) came after officials discovered that the crude oil, reportedly owned by an undisclosed Middle Eastern oil company, had been sold to an unidentified buyer in Southeast Asia, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources said. KNOC leases the storage facility in Ulsan, in the country's southeast, to foreign oil companies to store crude oil and petroleum products as part of an international stockpiling program. Under the arrangement, Korea has priority purchase rights to the stockpiles in the event of supply disruptions. The government uncovered the sale as the country is striving to minimize oil supply disruptions amid the Middle East conflict and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The ministry said the audit will examine whether there were any legal violations in the overseas sale of the oil before Ko