President Kim Hyung-geun, 5th R, led Korea Gas Safety Corp.’s Human Rights Committee’s first meeting on May 17 as its chairman and joins the members for a photo session after the meeting. (Photo: KGS)

Korea Gas Safety Corp. (KGS) has been emphasizing the importance of its human rights management to expand a culture of broader human rights.

President Kim Hyung-geun said respect for humans and value centered on human rights should be upheld, and the company will do everything possible to create an environment and systems that will safeguard human rights in all operational areas of the company.

Last July, KGS turned the Customer Support Unit into a Human Rights Customer Management Dep’t to integrate various human rights areas, including ethics, labor and sexual equality, among others.

In December, the company set up the Human Rights Committee to take charge of all those related to human rights and pursue them independently, including advisory and checkups on human rights violations.

The new committee is made up of 10 members, including six from outside the company, who are human rights experts, gender specialists or regional representatives led by the company’s CEO as chairman. At the first meeting last year, the committee discussed regulations needed to run the committee, the adoption of the human rights charter, among its main agenda.

In January, the committee held a ceremony to declare its Human Rights Charter to let the outside world know its strong intention to protect human rights in the company and the cooperative firms.

The charter is made up of eight articles dedicated to upholding human rights on all levels of the company, the supplier firms and the communities surrounding the company to seek balanced daily lives and secure the rights for safety in operation reflecting various special operational characteristics associated with KGS as a gas producer and supplier.

KGS will continue to push its safeguard measures to protect human rights in operations through its activities designed to prevent human rights violations.

In the meantime, KGS expanded its presence worldwide, carrying out 25 energy-related projects in 13 countries, in a bid to supply energy resources stably and secure new growth engines, the firm said.

The projects the firm has conducted included exploration and production of natural gas, and construction of LNG terminals.

KOGAS said it possesses liquefied natural gas purchasing power and market information in addition to networks and infrastructure, which enables itself to buy natural gas at appropriate times.

As of December 2017, the firm has brought 33 million tons of LNG into Korea annually from 16 countries.

The firm has invested in three LNG-related projects, including an OLNG project in Oman, generating a dividend income of 1.4 trillion won ($1.2 billion) as of 2017. This contributed to a drop in gas prices here.

The firm noted its exploration projects in Myanmar and Mozambique, among others, have been deemed a major success story.

The state-run company launched the Area 4 coral floating LNG (FLNG) project in Mozambique in September to construct a floating platform that will process natural gas extracted offshore of Mozambique.

In the A-1 and A-3 projects in Myanmar, the firm has also successfully carried out exploration work in cooperation with Posco Daewoo, the trading unit of Posco.

In its efforts to fulfill responsibility as a public enterprise, KOGAS has helped other private companies in diverse industries, including shipbuilding and finance, better make inroads into global markets.

Korean companies have won orders worth $14.5 billion in various overseas projects pushed for by KOGAS, such as construction of pipelines.

“We will jump up to be a global LNG provider by utilizing our world-level technical power and networks, and actively participating in natural gas infrastructure projects in emerging markets worldwide.” a KOGAS official said.