S.Korea buys Canada oil sands mine for $270 mn

SEOUL, July 24: South Korea has acquired an oil sands mine in Canada with a capacity of 250 million barrels of crude oil for 0 million, the country's energy ministry said on Monday.

State-run Korea National Oil Corp. has signed a deal to buy over the 100 percent stake of the BlackGold mine from U.S. mining giant Newmont Mining Corp., the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said in a statement.

The mine in Alberta is set to begin building a facility in 2008.

Full-scale operations, which are expected to produce 35,000 barrels of crude oil a day -- or 30 percent of total daily production of Korea's current crude assets abroad -- will start from 2010.

Oil sands are deposits of bitumen trapped in a mixture of clay, sand and water.

It is much more expensive to develop oil sands than conventional oil, but record-high crude prices are making oil sands projects economically viable and are attracting investments.

South Korea, the world's fourth-largest crude oil importer, has to import all its crude oil needs to feed its economy.

REUTERS