| 摘要 | ABSTRACT
1.
Necessity and Purpose of the Research
The study aims to find ways to effectively go into the Central and East Africa region where the Korean companies have shown a keen interest in energy resource development. The study looks into the Central Africa region including Chad, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo and DR Congo, and the East Africa region including Sudan/South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.
The noticeable features of the resource rich countries in Central Africa are depletion of the existing fields as well as stagnating and declining crude oil production. Due to these factors, both major and independent oil companies, which have led recourse development business in the region for a long time, are now actively finding new oil and gas fields. Meanwhile, the Central Africa countries devise policy which provides investment incentives to these foreign enterprises, and they welcome Asian national oil companies (NOCs) entering the region as new cooperation partners.
The onshore exploration blocks in Sudan and Uganda of East Africa and the offshore exploration blocks in East Coast of Kenya and Tanzania are emerging as strategic resource development areas. Governments in the East Africa region are longing for economic development through resource development in order to overcome long-lasting political and economic instability.
Political instability and armed conflict in the Central and Eastern Africa region are closely associated with ownership of energy resources as well as non-transparent and unequal distribution of the benefits from development. Also, concern with environmental destruction and pollution, which was neglected in the resource development process, has become a growing issue recently, both inside and outside the region.
In this situation, the Korean companies, the newcomer in the field of resource development in Africa, should carefully analyze above-described changing conditions and then devise concrete strategies for entering the region.
2.
Research Results
Downward trend in oil production from West African countries that are highly economically dependent on crude oil production and import may cause political, economic and social instability. Already entered major oil companies from the U.S. and Europe and independent oil and gas exploration companies are raising money to develop new oil and gas fields by selling all or part of the shares in existing production blocks, and are planning exploration activities. Also, in order to stably increase the oil production and export, the local governments are expanding their development areas to deep inland and offshore basin, and are actively attracting foreign companies which are reluctant to advancing the region due to high initial investment risk. However, concrete and reliable incentives for investment are yet to be prepared. Meanwhile, the West African states are trying to increase cooperation with Asian NOCs as new partners to break current dependence on a few certain major enterprises.
East Africa has been classified as unexplored regions and not many foreign companies buckled down to resource development. Moreover, disputes and civil war with neighboring countries constantly arose in the region for a long time. In recent years, however, domestic political situation has been gradually stabilized. Based on this, new governments are reforming their law and institutional system for economic growth through resource development and selling the oil and gas blocks. In this situation, discovery of giant oil and gas sites from the onshore blocks in Uganda and the offshore blocks in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique inspires a boom for resource development. Development of the sites will facilitate transport infrastructure construction for exports and development of small and medium sized sites around the areas.
The resource-endowed African countries are implementing polices to attract foreign companies until now. Some countries have joined Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) to improve foreign companies�� passive investment behaviors caused by high country risk. Nevertheless, insecure contract types, kickback requests from the power group, unstable security conditions and lack of transparency and fairness are still remaining problems.
International oil companies in Africa praised oil and gas development potential in the region. In particular, unexploited onshore areas of Chad, Sudan, and Uganda, inland areas of Congo and DR Congo, and coastal/hadal zone are emerging as strategic target areas for entering. For the independent exploration companies who prefer high-risk and high-return, East Africa region can be described as a very suitable place for investment to realize their development strategy. Utilizing their exploration technology and data analysis skills, they entered unexploited areas and signed an exploration contract with a local government with favorable conditions which brought enormous commercial benefits by selling their shares to others in the development and production stage.
Asian NOCs are actively entering East Africa region thanks to the relatively many investment opportunities and the advantage of geographical proximity. State owned oil companies from Taiwan, Thailand, and India and the three countries of North East Asia have laid the foundation for entering the region by purchasing shares or mineral rights of major and independent oil companies. Or, Asian NOCs are acquiring mineral rights through direct negotiation with the African governments. Asian NOCs�� effort to go into the Africa region is promoted to secure energy resources and to diversify energy import sources, under governments�� support for development assistance and close diplomatic ties with the African countries.
Meanwhile, as the African countries are willing to actively promote economic growth through resource development, they are requiring economic support when negotiating with foreign governments or enterprise. Economic support includes transport infrastructure, social overhead capital infrastructure, nurturing oil and gas processing industry, fostering the experts in resource development and increasing employment opportunities.
3.
Conclusion and Policy Suggestions
Governments around the world have been competitively increasing the volume of development assistance to Africa in order to secure energy resources and keep close diplomatic ties with the African governments. The Korean government is now supporting Korean companies�� entering Africa in the economic and energy fields in every possible way through resource diplomacy at the summit level and resource cooperation committee at the working level.
Currently, most Korean companies are participating in oil and gas development in the African region in a simple way such as sharing equity.
Resource development strategies in the central and East Africa region can be summarized as follows. First, purchasing the ownership of the oil and gas blocks in the region or taking over an independent oil companies can be a way to overcome constraints that the latecomers of resource development have in a short time. Korea��s competing countries, China and Japan, are also utilizing this strategy.
Second, in order to have new oil fields, it is needed to seek ways to effectively link resource development business and economic support activities by actively taking advantage of Resource Cooperation Committee between Korea and the resource-endowed African countries or holding industrial cooperation forum.
Third, as the offshore gas field of Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique is expected to become a major source of imports, it is desirable to secure export supply by purchasing shares in new oil exploration blocks and then take opportunities to participate in related plant and construction projects.
Fourth, it is required to start preemptive exploration business in landlocked countries having high resource development potentials, such as Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda and inland of Kenya before other competitors do. Since there is a high demand from those African countries for building transport infrastructure, Korea companies are competitive enough.
Fifth, we may learn from the aggressive exploration strategy of the independent exploration companies in the African region. For carrying out such an aggressive strategy, of course, it is needed to have enough geological exploration data and experiences for the African region and the experts in exploration field who can accurately analyze accumulated data based on the past experiences.
Finally, even though environmental regulations have not been strictly implemented in the region until now, it is expected to be realized in the near future. Therefore, the Korean government and the companies should be fully prepared in advance to respond to the changing legal situation. |
