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Brief history of the country
North Korea (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea), occupies the northern part of the Korean Peninsula (Joseon), bordering China and Russia (north) and South Korea (south).
From before 2000 BC Korea was ruled by the kingdom of Gojoseon until conquered by China in the 2nd century BC. It became divided into a southern region and Goryeo and later Balhae in the north. In 936 AD the peninsula unified and control was taken by the Joseon dynasty in 1392.
Repelling invasions from Japan and China, isolationist Korea was mostly peaceful for many centuries. However, it was eventually occupied by Japan in 1905 (to 1945) who tried to extinguish its culture.
After the war the peninsula was split along the 38th parallel. The north was supported by the Soviets; the south by the USA. The north then invaded the south in 1950, overrunning most of the country, but a US-led force pushed them back almost to the Chinese border. China intervened and the Americans retreated resulting in a bloody stalemate.
An armistice was declared in 1953 with boundaries restored but no peace treaty has ever been signed. Until the 1960s economic growth was higher in the north but the economy began to stagnate as China and the Soviet Union reduced their support.
The country’s isolation has severely hampered economic growth and the country remains very poor with a series of autocratic dictators in charge of a country with few freedoms.
Oil and gas summary
North Korea lies in the northern part of the Korean peninsula. To the southwest is the Yellow Sea (Korea West Sea),to the west is Korea Bay, and to the east is the Sea of Japan (Korea East Sea). South Korea is separated by a Demilitarised Zone.
A number of mountain ranges cross the peninsula separated by deep and narrow valleys. The mountains have elevations of 2,000m or more with the highest being the volcanic Paektu Mountain at 2,744m. Forest covers over 70% of the country on steep slopes with the coastal plain widest in the west along Korea Bay.
Around 30 exploration wells have been drilled since the 1960s, half of which were offshore, most of these in the Sohae basin in the west. The Sohae Basin has similarities to the productive Bohai Basin across the border in China.
A number of other basins are also present in the west and east, both onshore and offshore. However, no commercial production has been realised although some oil flows have been reported.
The closed nature of the country, limited data and persistent economic sanctions present major drawbacks to exploration. There may be potentially prospective areas, particularly adjacent to the Bohai basin, but the lack of success in other neighbouring areas with less restrictive practices (in South Korea and Japan), leads Globalshift not to forecast any production from North Korea.
KOREA (NORTH)
Map and National Flag
NORTH ASIA
Thatching a roof
North Asia
Capital
Population
Land area (sq kms)
Oil prod (000s b/d)
Gas prod (bcm/yr)
Oil cons (000s b/d)
Gas cons (bcm/yr)
Pyongyang
24 mm
120,538
None
None
14.5
None
Government
North Korea is a highly centralized, one-party republic.
The President heads all major governing structures. The 687-member unicameral Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) is the highest organ of state authority and holds the legislative power.
A cabinet is appointed by the SPA however it cannot initiate any legislation independently of the President.
The Ministry of Oil Industry oversees exploration activity in the country. The Korean Oil Exploration Corporation is the NOC.
Geology and History of Exploration
The Korean Peninsula forms part of the southern edge of the North China Craton (Amurian Plate) which also underlies Manchuria, Western Japan and the Russian Province of Primorsky Krai.
The plate is moving southeastwards with respect to the Eurasian Plate, colliding with the Philippine Sea Plate in the south. The Korean Peninsula is some distance from this margin and is largely comprised of basement metamorphic rocks and volcanics with small areas of Palaeozoic sedimentary accumulation, notably the Pyongyang basin.
A number of younger intra-cratonic basins are present along the western and eastern coastal plain containing sequences of Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments, extending offshore into Korea Bay on the west and into the Sea of Japan on the east.
The western offshore Sohae Basin, also known as the Korea Bay Basin, and adjacent sub-basins, Sinuiju to its north, and Anju-Sukchon, Zaeryong and Onchon to its east, are rifted lacustrine basins formed on the basement of the North China Craton at the end of the Cretaceous.
Geology is uncertain but they probably have similarities with the Bohai Basin in China. Here, during the syn-rift stage, a series of grabens and half grabens developed along northwest and northeast trending fault sets before becoming one large post-rift basin during the late Oligocene.
Sediments were deposited in a lake setting within these grabens with post-rift sediments dominated by fluvial deposits.
Little is known about the geology of the eastern offshore rifted Tonghae basin in the shallow and deep waters of the Sea of Japan or of the Kyongson basin to its north with the adjacent Kilchu onshore basin near to the Russian border. There are no nearby analogous producing areas and, if there is any potential, it is probably only for gas.
There may be opportunities for oil and gas accumulations both onshore and offshore in a number of the sedimentary basins, especially offshore Sohae.
History - Korea (North) has only a limited history of drilling with just a few speculative exploration wells drilled since 1965 in a range of basins both onshore and offshore, mostly using antiquated equipment and targeted with sparse geological and geophysical data.
In 1965, the country established a ‘bureau for the management of geological surveys for fuel resources’ and China conducted geophysical surveys and exploratory drilling in the west and northeast. In 1967 the Soviet Union then conducted a joint geological study in the Tumen estuary area. Neither of these projects yielded much worthwhile information.
In 1976 North Korea established two oil and gas exploration organizations, the Taedong-gang Survey Group (offshore) and the Tumen-gang Survey Group (onshore). By 1978 the offshore group had begun rudimentary drilling operations in Korea Bay from a fixed platform.
GECO was contracted to acquire an extensive survey of offshore seismic data from 1980. A few wells were drilled by the onshore and offshore groups using old equipment in a number of areas but with no success.
The country was also keen on attracting foreign oil exploration companies. Meridian licensed an exploration block in the Sohae Basin (Korea Bay Basin) in 1987, the first drilling rights to be granted to a foreign company.
In 1989 a well drilled 50 kms north of the Demilitarised Zone in the Zaeryong Basin was reported to have produced 425 barrels of oil and by 1990 at least 30 on and offshore wells had been drilled on both sides of the peninsula. However, reports of ‘vast oil resources’ by the government were grossly exaggerated.
The country reached out to South Korean, Japanese and Australian companies. All failed to proceed to drilling. In 1997 the government reported it had produced 450 bbls of oil per day from its No. 406 well off Nampo but the truth of this claim has not been established.
In 1998 SOCO International acquired a concession to explore onshore and offshore areas of the Anju-Sukchon and Onchon Basins on the west coast but failed to find commercial reserves.
A number of foreign companies then secured rights in 2000 and 2001, focused on the Sohae Basin where CNOOC had speculated that large potential reserves exist, bordering the Bohai Gulf in China. Sanctions ensured that no wells were drilled.
North Korea may try to return to working with small foreign firms to develop its resources and there may be potential, particularly in the seas adjacent to China, and also in deeper waters on the east, but little activity is likely whilst the current government remains in power and sanctions on the country persist.