South Korea's exports of petroleum products and refined oils rose sharply in the first six months of the year on rising crude prices, customs data showed Thursday.

A total of $16.69 billion worth of petroleum products were shipped overseas during the January-June period, up 36.1 percent from a year earlier, according to the data by the Korea Customs Service.

The volume of such exported goods also rose 1.7 percent to 32.93 million tons over the cited period.

Asia's fourth-largest economy saw its entire outbound shipments gain 15.8 percent on-year in the six months through June, continuing its upbeat trend that began in November last year thanks to an upturn both in oil prices and global trade.

Exports of diesel oil surged 40.2 percent on-year to $5.65 billion to lend support to the steep uptick, while those of jet fuel soared 46.6 percent to $3.67 billion and those of gasoline rose 28.6 percent to $2.8 billion. (Yonhap)