South Korea: Global Struggle Emerges for Oil Reserves

The soaring price of crude has put control of the world’s oil market into the hands of a few oil producing countries. Just a few decades ago, multinationals like Exxon, Mobil and Chevron were the industry’s bigwigs. But starting in the 1970s the oil producing countries founded their own national oil corporations that blocked foreign companies from drilling for oil there.

For example, Saudi Arabian oil company Aramco holds one-fifth of the world’s reserves, more than twice what all of the world’s non-oil producing countries have access to. That is why countries like Korea must drill for oil in places like Africa or out at sea to secure any oil reserves of their own.


In an industry where the size of the corporation determines whether it can put in a bid for oil projects, Korea faces a harsh reality. The Korea National Oil Corp. does not even rank in the top 100 in size, making it hard for it to bid for oil fields against larger corporations around the world.

Chosunilbo