President Choo Kang-soo of Korea Gas Corp. said in his New Year’s speech that Kogas has been supplying gas in Korea stably for the past 30 years, true to the purpose of its establishment and existence, despite various difficulties.

In order to fulfill the mission, the gas company has built a large global cooperative network to step up its efforts to be a global energy concern with the help of the people of Korea, the top executive of Kogas said.

Natural gas has been leading a new industrial revolution because of its economic advantage in such areas as cleanliness and accessibility. The consumption of LNG has been rapidly rising around the world and its supply will remain stable and its price will not rise, Choo predicted.

Natural gas is no longer considered a transition energy, but a destination energy, which will be used by the human race for hundreds of years. In fact, the golden age for natural gas has opened. In order to supply such a good quality energy as natural gas, Kogas maintains three berths for 75,000-ton gas tankers, three berths for 127,000-ton gas tankers, unloading facilities for these gas tankers, and 60 storage tanks with the capacity to hold 8,860,000 kl of gas. Kogas has the capacity to produce 10,636 tons of gas per hour, Choo said.

Kogas operates 256 maintenance units across the nation to watch over 3,558 km of pipelines that supply gas to industrial plants, power plants, 186 of the 230 local autonomous organizations, and 76 percent of homes in the country on a stable basis.

Kogas plans to start operation of its Samcheok base in July 2014 and its Jeju base in December 2017. “We worked hard and did a lot so far, but we should work harder and do more,” Choo said.

“We prioritized safety in our work for the company for the past two years, promoting a realistic safety culture expansion campaign jointly with management and labor and the cooperation of the union as much as possible. Each of the jobsites carried out its share of work to build a culture of safety,” Choo said.  

“In the area danger control, scientific and predictable measures based on experience have been employed with an eye to develop them further by learning how to use and develop new high-tech measures for safety.”

Choo said, “We have to cope well, including the uses of active and preemptive means, with the changes in the energy development and consumption environment, including shale gas, the cuts in the construction of new nuclear power plants, public demand for energy welfare, the government’s basic energy policies, the supply plan for natural gas, and other important factors in order to continue to stably supply natural gas by expanding the production capacities of LNG on a timely basis.

The Kogas CEO also called for securing the proper quantity of natural gas, around 20 percent to 30 percent of the estimated demand, in order to overcome the difficulties of demand projection. “We have to develop overseas natural resources for exploration and create a flexible demand and supply management system. International trading is a necessity rather than an option as far as we are concerned,” Choo said.

Concern for deteriorating financial conditions has been rising due to increases in uncollected receivables and hikes in investments needed for natural resources exploration and the economic crises sweeping Europe, the United States, and Japan.

In the past several years, Kogas has attempted to improve its overseas operations by building a diametrical line of gas business operations and the expansion of gas-related business commodities, the globalization of earnings sources, and the globalization of all of its operations. The company still has a long way to go as globalization is only at the beginning stage, including the control system and the capacity of individuals.