SK: State Companies to Acquire ‘Proven’ Gas Fields Abroad

South Korea’s state-run energy corporations are likely to go abroad more actively to acquire “proven’’ oil and gas fields as well as potential ones as part of efforts to raise the country’s self-sufficiency in the key resources, according to sources Sunday.

Officials from the presidential transition committee said that the incoming Lee Myung-bak administration’s blueprint for the acquisition of energy resources has been drawn up under the guidelines of the president-in-waiting.
South Korea aims to raise the self-sufficiency in gas and oil to 28 percent of the total domestic demands by 2016. According to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, the figure stayed at around 3.2 percent in 2006 and 5.7 percent last year.

In the meantime, other experts in the presidential transition team said, the proposed idea of bringing Russia’s natural gas to the country through pipelines is also picking up speed.

“My top priority will be given to talks on the development of natural resources and oil fields in eastern Siberia,’’ Rep. Lee Jae-oh, a close ally to the President-elect, said before departure for Moscow as the special envoy of the incoming head of state.

Korea Times