It has turned out that the debt-ridden Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC) had recovered only 10.9 percent of its investments made in overseas resources development projects over the past 15 years.
The state-run energy firm has sunk 16.4 trillion won into 55 overseas energy projects over the past 15 years (1999-2014) but retrieved a meager 1.8 trillion won as of the end of 2014, according to the data that Rep. Jeon Jeong-hee of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) obtained from KNOC.
KNOC suffered hefty losses from investing in 54 of the total 55 overseas energy projects. There was a single exception, though. KNOC pumped 660 billion won into the South East Sumatra (SES) and retrieved approximately 770 billion won.
By year, for the five years from 2008 to 2012 (under President Lee Myung-bak), KNOC invested 10 to 20 times as much money as its average annual investment money earmarked for overseas energy projects.
Under the Lee Myung-bak government, KNOC invested 1.5 trillion won in 2008, 4.2 trillion won in 2009, 4.09 trillion won in 2010, 3.2 trillion won in 2011 and 1.8 trillion won in 2012.
“Production has been on a downward trajectory at most of the overseas mines since they were acquired by KNOC. KNOC rushed into snatching up these mines after making exaggerated estimates of resource deposits,” Representative Jeon pointed out.
