Curzon over at Coming Anarchy discusses South Korea’s quest for oil reserves. What got me, however, was a news blurb he quoted reporting that Korea and Uzbekistan are planning to conclude an agreement on oil exploration in the Central Asian state within the year. This drew my attention because late last month, a Korean consortium inked a deal with Kazakh state oil company KMG for exploration rights in the Caspian Sea:
[T]he consortium would conclude share-transfer and management agreements with KMG by the end of the year, with the exploration contract going into effect later. The national oil corporations of both countries concluded a protocol to jointly develop a field in the Zhambyl area when President Roh Moo-hyun visited Kazakhstan in September. A joint estimate concluded that the area has large oil deposits.
Boy, that deal to help build the Kazakh navy looks a bit more significant now, doesn’t it? Maybe they can help build up the Uzbek one as well.
Nice to see President Roh’s Great Game Adventure is paying off.
One Comment
I can’t say I’m against making deals like this, and if I were a businessman, I probably would go for it, but isn’t it funny how when the US makes deals with unsavoury types, they get accused of only looking out for their own interests, of selfishness, of having a lack of concern for human rights, yet when other countries do it, the usual (leftist) whiners don’t say a word.