Former Vice President Suh Moon-kyu has been inaugurated as the new CEO of Korea National Oil Corp. on Aug. 17 in a ceremony held at the company’ s head office in Seoul. At the inaugural ceremony, the new president said he would lead the state-run oil company to build a global operation network through the strategic make up of its assets in the composition of its portfolio and a unique corporate culture so that the company would be able to secure the public’ s trust and love.

Suh was among the 10 finalists among the applicants for the vacant position and beat out rivals that included a number of former KNOC executives. He succeeded former President Kang Young-won who resigned about two months ago. He is a graduate of Korea University with a major in French and the first former KNOC man to be named CEO of the government-invested oil exploration company.

Suh entered the oil company in 1979 and rose to the position of vice president, which he held from 2004 and 2009, during which he took charge of various key positions including manager of the Management Headquarters.

In the meantime, Korea National Oil Corp. (KNOC) and Petro Vietnam signed an MOU on strengthening cooperation between the two oil companies on oil storage and exploration at the Shilla Hotel on March 29 in the presence of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, President Do Van Hau of Petro Vietnam, and President Kang Young-won of KNOC.

KNOC has been able to maintain close relations with Petro Vietnam through its work on the 11-2 gas field and the 15-1 mining district in Vietnam, and through the recent MOU KNOC will be able to help Petro Vietnam build its underground oil storage facilities, taking advantage of its accumulated experience and technologies for building and operating its own underground oil storage facilities, considered the largest such facilities in the world.

KNOC previously signed an MOU on Dec. 7, 2011 with PVOS, an affiliate of Petro Vietnam, in connection with building underground oil storage facilities in the areas of operation and management (O&M) and the training of personnel.

Upon request from Petro Vietnam, KNOC will hold a meeting to explain the details of the MOU and sign a basic agreement, which will result in a substantial improvement in the cooperative relations between the two oil companies. KNOC is considered to have laid a foundation to export its technologies related to oil exploration and construction of underground oil storage facilities overseas, KNOC said. KNOC held its 2012 strategy meeting on Jan. 26-27 for its overseas unit heads at its head office in Seoul to discuss and draw up the company’ s major strategies for this year. With the unit heads of KNOC’ s 17 overseas units in 14 countries, a total of 47 personnel attending, the two-day meeting led by President Kang took up such issues as those faced by each unit and issues that require immediate solutions facing the company as a whole, especially those related to pushing the Great KNOC 3020 vision, such as mid- to long-term strategies and synergy among KNOC-invested firms abroad.

The Great KNOC 3020 was announced in 2008 in line with the government policy to make KNOC greater. Under the strategy, KNOC’ s daily crude oil production would reach 300,000 barrels and its secured untapped oil reserves would increase to 2 billion barrels in 2012. KNOC said its Ada oil field in Kazakhstan, which has been explored since 2009, was found to contain 11 million barrels of crude oil recently. The new discovery brought the total untapped crude oil in the mining districts in the No. 5 Basenkol to 41 million barrels, boosting the economic feasibility of the mining district with the discovery of new crude oil reserves.