Contrary to the conventional view that oil price hikes hinder economic growth in Korea, a country heavily dependent on energy imports, our analysis shows that demand-driven global economic activity shocks can significantly boost industrial production. We find that other structural oil market shocks do not necessarily dampen aggregate economic activity. At the industry level, the mining and manufacturing sectors respond positively, while the construction sector is negatively affected only by oil supply shocks. These findings highlight the need to account for the structural sources of oil price fluctuations and sectoral differences when analyzing the oil-macro relationship in small open economies.