By Mun Ho Il

Special to The People's Korea

The Canada-based KANTEK Company estimates in its materials declassified on Sept. 25 that the north Korean oil reserves in District No. 606 of the Korean West Sea continental shelf reach about five to 40 billion barrels.

The south Korean vernacular daily Hanguk Ilbo on Sep. 29 reported the U.S.-based Stanton Group is eager to invest in an oil project as a KEDO-style consortium member.

The south Korean weekly Sisa Journal, a leading media tool for north Korean petroleum business, concluded in its Nov. 13 special feature that the north Korean oil development plan emerged as "a realistic subject," after providing related information regularly in the past several years.

In oil exploitation business, a degree of profits is confirmed in the mining stage. An estimation in the excavation stage and those at preliminary research and experimental exploitation stages are not always the same. The aboved-mentioned reports refer to the latter.

However, a series of press reports suggest north Korea attained a certain result in the program in cooperation with foreign business firms.

According to Korean sources, an explanation meeting by north Korean oil experts is scheduled to be held in Singapore next February.

State Policy Line

It has been stressed in the DPRK that cooperation with foreign capitals should be promoted for its domestic oil development.

The Law on Underground Resources, a law concerning oil development projects, notes in Article 8 that exchange and cooperation with foreign countries should be developed in the fields of research, development and use of underground resources. In a related development, the Petroleum Research Bureau has been upgraded to Ministry of Petroleum Industry.

The implementation of the underground resources law (April, 1993) and the establishment of the petroleum industry ministry (July, 1993) were followed by an official government decision to galvanize the domestic oil development industry as part of state policy at the 9th session of the 7th Supreme People's Assembly (April, 1994).

In his key note sppech at the assembly, Premier Kang Song San said, "We will significantly increase investments in the oil industry, modernize research equipment and discover more oil fields."

Geological Survey

The oil research activities have been supported by unique geological theories propounded by domestic scholars.

Volume 3 of "Geological Science" printed by the Scientific and Technological Publication Company in 1993 carried two oil-related theses which suggested some districts where large-scale underground oil fields might be located.

The surveys are "Our country's sedimentation basins in the Mesozoic (200 million years ago) and Cenozoic (65,000 years ago) periods and its oil-containing features" written by Kim Jong Rae and "Regional and chemical features of Kaechon oil-containing rocks and their role for oil search," co-authored by Kim Sok Tae and Kim Jae Yong.

These articles stress the following: 1) it is highly likely that sedimentation layers formed during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic periods contain oil, 2) these layers widely spread along with the continental shelf of the Korean West Sea, and 3) Oil-containing Kaechon rocks were discovered in some parts of the region.

Although oil fields have been discovered in various parts of the country including the Korean East Sea since 1985, these test-drilling works are concentrated on the Western coastal areas.