S. Korea to go oil drilling in Iraq

South Korea will take its oil drilling tools to Kurdistan and explore eight oil fields there to meet its domestic requirement in return for building infrastructure facilities in the northern Iraqi region, state-run Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC) has said.

The agreement signed with the Kurdish regional government June 21 would give Seoul 1.9 billion barrels of crude oil that will meet Korea's total crude oil demand for two years, WAM reported Thursday.

Kurdistan last February signed an oil-for-construction agreement with South Korea under which Seoul would gain the right of prospecting and drilling in return for building infrastructure facilities like road, water and power in the northern Iraqi region.

The $2.1 billion infrastructure construction project is led by Hyundai Engineering and Construction and Sangyong Engineering and Construction Co.

South Korea, which relies heavily on imports for its crude oil requirement, has been aggressively pushing for overseas energy projects and seeks to win energy projects by linking them with infrastructure construction.