In this blog post, we’ll examine the news that South Korea has become the world’s 95th oil-producing country and take a look at the process of oil and gas development.
If you were to ask, “Is South Korea an oil-producing country?” many people would likely dismiss the idea as absurd. This is likely because South Korea is the world’s sixth-largest oil importer, and we’ve heard the phrase “We must spare no effort to conserve energy because we don’t produce a single drop of oil” ad nauseam since childhood. However, South Korea is now a proud member of the club of oil-producing nations.
In June 1999, long-awaited news arrived from the waters off the East Sea. Thirty years after the start of oil exploration on the domestic continental shelf, a commercially viable gas field had been confirmed. With this, South Korea joined the ranks of oil-producing nations as the 95th country in the world. Yet even regarding this, some people react by asking, “Isn’t this just a symbolic gas field, and isn’t it impractical for actual use?” The Donghae-1 gas field produces an average of 1,100 tons of natural gas and 1,000 barrels of ultra-light crude oil per day. Considering that this level of production is sufficient to supply gas to 340,000 households daily and power approximately 20,000 vehicles, the Donghae-1 gas field can be considered a fully commercial gas field. Furthermore, total sales revenue is expected to reach approximately $1.6 billion, far exceeding the $300 million invested to date.
However, these achievements were not easily attained. In the past, major foreign oil companies made numerous attempts to discover oil in the East Sea but ultimately failed to find economically viable oil fields and withdrew entirely. Similarly, it took South Korea 31 drilling attempts over approximately 30 years to discover the East Sea gas field. Furthermore, considering that it took six years from the discovery of the oil field to the completion of development and the start of production, it is clear that resource development is an extremely difficult task. So, what process is involved in producing oil, which is indispensable to our daily lives?
Many people have likely gone to the tidal flats of the West Sea at least once to dig for clams. Oil development is similar to the process of digging for clams in the tidal flats. First, to dig for clams, you must go to a tidal flat in the West Sea where public access is freely permitted. This process is similar to securing a mining concession during the exploration phase of oil development. Countries that own land with potential for oil fields sell development rights to other countries or companies, and securing those rights is called obtaining a mining concession.
Once you’ve entered the tidal flats, you must search for areas where clams are likely to be found. This stage corresponds to the physical exploration phase of the exploration process. After securing a mining concession, you must determine the exact location and scale of the oil reserves. Since the area covered by a mining concession is generally very large, you must narrow down the range of potential sites through precise physical exploration, estimate the reserves, and evaluate whether the site is worth drilling. There are many methods of physical exploration, including gravity surveys, electrical surveys, magnetic surveys, and seismic surveys, but seismic surveys are primarily used in oil development.
However, even if you find a spot where clams might be, you won’t know for sure whether clams are actually there or if they are of the expected size until you dig into the mudflats. Similarly, even if a candidate site is selected through geophysical surveys, the only way to know for sure whether oil is present or if the reserves meet the expected scale is to actually drill a hole in the ground. In other words, once a location likely to contain clams is found, one must begin digging with a hoe to harvest them; this digging corresponds to the drilling process in the exploration phase.
Drilling refers to the process of boring a hole in the ground to determine whether actual oil is buried in a candidate site identified through geophysical surveys. It would be wonderful if a clam were found every time you dug, but reality is not so kind, and sadly, the same holds true in oil development. Looking at the case of the Donghae-1 gas field, it took 31 drilling attempts to finally discover a commercially viable gas field. Of course, technology has advanced significantly since then, and success rates typically range around 10%, with some cases reaching as high as 30%. Therefore, conducting a proper exploration is of the utmost importance.
Once you’ve finally found a clam, you must prepare to harvest it. This corresponds to the development phase of oil development. While the process of digging up a clam simply involves widening the hole to extract it and bringing a basket to hold it, the process in oil development is much more complex. This is the stage where the most money and equipment are invested, including the installation of casing, production platforms, and transport pipelines.
Finally, once preparations to extract the clam are complete, the clam must be removed, placed in a basket, and transported out of the tidal flat. This stage is the production phase, the final stage of oil development. The process of extracting oil from an oil field consists of two main stages. The first stage involves collecting oil that flows out due to natural pressure, and the second stage involves artificially applying pressure by injecting water or gas into the oil field when oil no longer flows due to natural pressure. Most of the extracted oil is transported via pipelines to refineries on land. Through this process, the oil we use in our daily lives is produced.
We have now reviewed the stages of oil development. In the Energy major within the Department of Earth and Environmental Systems Engineering at Seoul National University—which combines civil, urban, environmental, and energy disciplines—students learn about all three stages: exploration, development, and production. If students go on to graduate school, they can choose one of these stages to conduct more detailed research.
Recently, the importance of securing energy resources has been growing steadily. In particular, as the political situation in North Africa and the Middle East has become unstable, ensuring a stable supply of energy resources has become a national priority. For this reason, there are predictions that securing energy resources will determine a nation’s survival in the future. Currently, South Korea’s annual oil consumption amounts to approximately 700 million barrels, but the volume supplied annually through overseas oil fields secured by the country accounts for only about 15% of that total. As the importance of securing energy resources grows with time, not only students majoring in energy resources but the entire nation must devote its full efforts to this endeavor.
