SEOUL, KOREA - Koo Ja-young, vice chairman of SK Innovation, proposed a future blueprint to make its shale gas fields in the United States core assets of the company's overseas resource development efforts. He said this on August 2 while visiting Oklahoma's gas field. Last April, the company bought a 75-percent stake in fields located in Grant and Garfield counties (Oklahoma) while taking a 50-percent stake in the Crane County (Texas) gas field.

 

This is the first time for SK Innovation to take a controlling stake in U.S. energy assets, even though it had invested in partial stakes in five fields in Texas and Louisiana in 1997 when the company was under the government's ownership.

 

The vice chairman said to the employees of SK E&P, the U.S. subsidiary of SK Innovation, "The shale gas boom that began in the United States is spreading throughout the world. I will make sure the U.S. subsidiary will be the centerpiece of our strategy to expand into non-conventional energy resource areas."

 

By the time the company acquired the American gas assets, it figured it could boost output significantly by drilling additional locations. As expected, the company could increase the output in the Oklahoma fields by more than 50 percent within three months. In the three fields, SK Innovation is now producing 4,500 barrels of oil equivalent a day.