South Korea Replaces a Coal Unit With an LNG Plant in Gumi, Increasing Dependence on Imported Gas

South Korea has brought into service the first gas-fired power plant built to replace a retired coal unit. On September 16, 2026, state-run Korea Western Power (KOWEPO) and builder Kumho Engineering & Construction held a completion ceremony for the 500-megawatt Gumi natural gas power plant, located in the fifth national industrial complex of Gumi HiTech Valley in North Gyeongsang Province. The plant does not burn coal. It is a new facility running entirely on imported liquefied natural gas, built about 200 kilometers from Taean to take over the capacity of Unit 1 of the Taean coal-fired power station, which was retired under the government's program to phase out aging coal generation.

Seoul presents the project as a step toward carbon neutrality and a more reliable power supply for one of the country's key manufacturing hubs. It also highlights a strategic trade-off that the Strait of Hormuz crisis has made impossible to ignore this year. Every coal unit replaced by a gas plant increases the country's dependence on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), a fuel that has become scarcer and more expensive since the conflict between the United States and Iran disrupted Gulf shipping in early March 2026.

Construction of the Gumi plant started in December 2022. The site first received grid power in November 2024, the gas turbine was fired for the first time in September 2025 and the steam turbine began generating electricity about three months later. According to KOWEPO, commercial operation started on February 20, 2026. Kumho E&C, which built the facility on its own, announced the completion on September 21 and said the remaining construction work is due to be finished by the end of September.

The plant uses a combined-cycle design built around one gas turbine and one steam turbine. Burning natural gas drives the first turbine, and the hot exhaust is then captured to make steam that powers the second one. This setup produces more electricity from the same amount of fuel than a conventional thermal plant and emits far less carbon dioxide than the coal unit it replaces.

For Gumi, the impact is significant. Once the plant runs at full capacity, the city's power self-sufficiency rate is expected to climb from about 6% to roughly 30%. Local authorities and industry see the added capacity as essential for the planned semiconductor cluster in Gumi HiTech Valley, where chip and electronics producers need a stable and uninterrupted electricity supply. As part of the replacement, 65 KOWEPO employees from Taean were transferred to the new site.

In Taean, Unit 1 stopped operating in December 2025 after 30 years and six months of service. It was the first coal unit closed under President Lee Jae-myung's administration, and local residents have warned about the economic cost of the shutdowns for the county. Eight of the ten coal units at the Taean complex are scheduled to close by 2037, with KOWEPO planning to turn the site into a hub for offshore wind and solar power.

The switch does not move South Korea from a domestic fuel to an imported one. Korean coal power plants already run almost entirely on imported bituminous coal, and domestic mining has nearly disappeared. The last state-run coal mine, Dogye in Samcheok, closed on June 30, 2025, ending decades of publicly operated coal production. The real change lies in the supply profile. Coal can be stockpiled in large volumes and bought from many exporters, while LNG depends on specialized carriers, a limited number of export terminals and storage tanks that hold only a few weeks of demand.

That vulnerability has been tested throughout 2026. South Korea imported 46.7 million tonnes of LNG in 2025, making it one of the largest buyers in the world, and gas provides roughly a quarter of its electricity generation. Qatar supplied 14.9% of those imports last year. After Iranian drones struck Qatar's Ras Laffan and Mesaieed industrial sites in early March, QatarEnergy declared force majeure on part of its long-term contracts. At that time, South Korea's LNG inventories were estimated at around 3.5 million tonnes, equal to only two to four weeks of normal demand.

Six months later, the situation remains tense. In mid-September, Korean media reported that the military confrontation between Washington and Tehran shows signs of dragging on, with damage to Middle Eastern pipelines and halted navigation on key shipping routes. European gas storage stands at a record low of about 65% of capacity ahead of winter, which raises the risk of a bidding war between Europe and Asia for spot cargoes. Australia has become South Korea's main supplier, with a 28.4% share of imports between January and July 2026, and projects such as SK Innovation E&S's stake in the Barossa gas field now secure 1.3 million tonnes per year for the country.

Aware of the risk, the government is adjusting its coal exit plan. At a public forum on September 18, 2026, linked to the 12th Basic Plan for Long-Term Electricity Supply and Demand, experts presented a roadmap under which 27 of the 60 coal units in operation would be replaced by LNG plants by 2036. Twelve units retiring in 2037 and 2038 would be replaced by pumped-storage hydropower instead of gas, and the remaining 21 units, with a combined capacity of 19.1 gigawatts, would be retired early between 2037 and 2039.

The most notable proposal is to keep up to 10 of those 21 units as security reserve capacity. Some of them would be held as a strategic reserve, kept in long-term preservation with minimal staff so they can be restarted in case of LNG supply disruptions or sharp oil price increases. Closed coal sites could also host small modular reactors if local communities agree, or battery energy storage systems.

The replacement program is already moving to the next stage. KOWEPO is building a 500-megawatt gas plant in Yeosu to replace Taean Unit 2, with construction scheduled to run until December 2028, and another in Gongju for Taean Unit 3. Four LNG units that will replace Hadong Units 5 and 6 and Taean Units 5 and 6 have been assigned to the Yongin semiconductor cluster. Each new gas plant strengthens local power supply for strategic industries, but it also adds to a national gas bill that remains exposed to events in the Gulf. The coming winter, with a tight global LNG market, will be the first real test of this balance for the Gumi plant.