Big Deal in Brazil
SK Corp. to start commercial operation of its oil find in Latin American country

SK Corp. confirmed the commercial feasibility of its new oil well in the BM-C-8 mining block in Brazil recently and retrieve the oil buried in the oil field estimated to amount to over 50 million barrels. The company said it has 40 percent stake in the oil well and so 20 million barrels of oil from the well belong to the company.
The offshore mining block is located 250 km from Rio de Janeiro. SK has been engaged in the work to explore the oil field since 2000 when it took over 60 percent stake in Devon Energy, a U.S. wildcat oil company.
The two oil explorer companies after drawing up a contract launched the oil exploration to find that the offshore oil field has some 50 million barrels of crude oil in reserves.
The two partners will build an oil drilling facility that can handle 50,000 barrels of oil per day from early next year and launch the commercial operation of the oil well from the second half of 2007.
The two oil firms will be able to engaged in oil drilling from the offshore oil field for 27 years under the terms of the contract.
Managing director Yoo Jung-joon of SK Resources and International said the company has been making efforts to contribute to the growth of national economy through the development of overseas natural resources since its launch of the oil exploration in early 1983. Especially since the inauguration of Chairman Chey Tae-won, the company further strengthened its energy development sector to become a new energy company in the Asia-Pacific area, which led to the successful development of oil wells in Vietnam, Peru and Brazil, he said.
The company expects further discovery of oil in other mining blocks in the Latin American country, especially those new mining blocks signed when President Roh Moo-hyun visited Brazil in November, last year including BM-C-30 and 32, with Devon Energy of the United States.
In the meantime, SK Corp. as the biggest oil exploration firm in Korea, has been engaged in oil exploration in 53 projects in 23 countries starting with the Karimoon block in Indonesia in 1983. Currently, the company is undertaking the exploration and production of oil and gas in 19 blocks in 11 countries, securing 300 million barrels of crude oil equivalent to 40 percent of oil consumed in the country a year, pumping up 24,000 barrels of oil per day from its own oil wells overseas.
The company? investment has been focused on the Latin America with Brazil and Peru getting most of the investment, Southeast Asia with Vietnam at its center and the Caspian region centered around Kazhakstan in Central Asia, all in an effort to boost a daily oil production to 100,000 barrels per day in 2010 with oil reserves reaching 700 million barrels.
In the meantime, SK Corp. developed separator, a core material for Lithium Ion Battery, with its own technology, first in Korea and third in the world. Separator, a thin membrane, is a core material of Lithium Ion Battery(LIB). It prevents the anode and cathode of LIB from contacting each other, but makes electrolyte ions pass the membrane through dozens of nano-sized air holes. Around the world, Asahi(Japan) and Tonen(Japan) have the technology, and they have dominated the global separator market.
Since the use of ICT devices including mobile phones and laptops gets more intense, the demand for LIB has dramatically increased. In this regard, domestic production of separator and its stable supply carries great significance.
SK Corp. applied the cutting-edge nano technology and chemical technologies accumulated for forty years in business and succeeded in developing separator last year first in Korea and third in the world.
In the ?0s, several domestic companies tried to develop separator but no companies have succeeded so far. However, SK Corp. could grab the success within relatively s short time for good reasons. Firstly, the company owns polymer manufacturing technology, essential for separator development as the largest energy/chemical enterprise in Korea. And secondly, bold R&D strategies were in place under which researchers for demo plant and mass-production could be carried out in parallel and this tactic worked very well. nw

SK Corp. Chairman Chey Tae-won.