S. Korea Acquires Oil Fields in US, Congo
By Jane Han
Staff Reporter
Local energy developers this week have bought stakes in oil-producing fields in the Gulf of Mexico and Congo that secure a combined 90 million barrels of crude oil, pushing up the country's self-sufficiency rate in oil and gas from 4.2 percent last year to 4.92 percent of total demand, the government said Friday.
The more recent of the two deals, signed Thursday, is the state-run Korea National Oil Corp. (KNOC) and Samsung Corp's purchase of 16 offshore oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico from U.S.-based Taylor Energy.
In the nation's largest acquisition of its kind, the KNOC will hold an 80-percent stake and management rights for the oil fields, with Samsung controlling the remaining 20 percent.
The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said the bloc currently produces 17,000 barrels of oil per day, but the amount is set to increase to 19,000 barrels by 2009.
Ministry officials said the acquisition is likely to exceed $1 billion, but local investors are likely to recoup their money spent in about four years.
The second of the two deals announced Friday entails the KNOC's purchase of an 11 percent stake in the onshore M'Boundi field in Congo, equal to 4,400 barrels of oil per day, from Tullow Oil Plc. The British-based company said the transaction was worth $435 million.
The M'Boundi field, discovered in 2001, is noted as one of the largest onshore oil fields to be detected in Africa in recent years.
The ministry said the combined output of the two contracts amounts to a daily production of 21,400 barrels of crude oil and gas, which is about 5,000 barrels more than output by the South Korean-controlled offshore field in Vietnam.
These deals are part of the country's efforts to raise its energy self-sufficiency by expanding acquisition overseas. This is a transition from the previous strategy of launching risky, low-cost explorations, such as the recently suspended deal in Iraq.