President Jang Seok-hyo of Korea Gas Corp.(Photo: Kogas)

Korea Gas Corp. (Kogas) is likely to form consortia with a number of private companies and import natural gas directly, President Jang Seok-hyo said.

During a media briefing on Oct. 25 the CEO of the government-run gas company said he doesn’t see any need for government-owned firms and private companies to compete when the global gas market is in good condition and said he is ready to make proposals for setting up consortia if the global gas market becomes a buyers’ market.

“There is no sense in having competition among Korean firms who are importing from 1 million tons to 2 million tons of gas annually, giving such an advantage to the suppliers,” the Kogas CEO said.

Jang said Kogas might sell parts of its overseas assets with so much concern about overseas natural resources exploration. He said a task force has been working on an evaluation of the company’s overseas natural gas exploration projects that don’t look good in terms of future prospects. He said the moves will be gradual in consideration of SMEs that are involved.

He also said he is generally not eager to conduct M&As in the course of the company’s operations because of some negative impacts that develop due to cultural differences in the areas of personnel. The Kogas CEO said he is interested in M&As in the area of gas drilling, but he is still worried that if not done properly, M&As could go wrong and end up with Kogas taking over a company with no real value.

Jang also answered criticisms that there is a glut of LNG by saying that the long-term demand/supply projections have not been balanced with the demand side not properly projected below the actual demand. “The problems should be corrected in the government’s basic energy plan, otherwise we might lose the opportunity to sign long-term gas supply contracts now,” Jang said.

In the meantime, Kogas held rallies among its employees to resolve that the company should have a new start as a trusted company in terms of clean and ethically upright management. The rallies determined that a “one strike and you’re out” system should be introduced to take care of corruption and other weak points in the company to renew its corporate culture.

Kogas, in the meantime, held a ceremony to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its founding at its head office in Seongnam City, Gyeonggi Province, near Seoul, with its key executives and staff attending led by President Jang where they resolved clean and ethical management in a declaration signed by everyone present. The declaration called for fair and just performance of duties to make the company clean and ethical in management in order to clean up all forms of corrupt practices, such as receiving money, gifts, and entertainment in return for doing or asking favors.

Under Jang’s leadership, the company will take actions on 10 key issues such as finding out the weak areas in the company’s management including corruption, strengthening its watch on corruption and unjust personnel moves, building a system to reward clean and ethically upright employees, and a reform of corporate culture, among others, to change the organizational culture and the employees attitudes and way of thinking. 

Under the new system, if an employee commits a corrupt practice once he or she will be punished. The company will also strengthen its audits on the use of corporate credit cards and official travel by employees and examine the personnel records of candidates for first and second grade promotions to see if they have committed any corrupt actions by strengthening the punitive regulations against such corrupt and unfair practices.