• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.105-118
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• 2019

In the past two decades, due to the rapid fluctuations in the oil supply and demand in Northeast Asia as well as a surge in oil prices in the early 2000s, Korea has been developing the Northeast Asia Oil Hub project as a national project. This project was promoted based on the policy consideration that the nation's energy security and regional development can be promoted by establishing an oil hub in Northeast Asia that can eventually replace Singapore as East Asia's oil logistics hub. Following the construction of a large-scale oil storage facility in Yeosu in 2013, the main project in Ulsan has suffered many difficulties due to environmental changes such as the supply and demand of oil and political factors. The survey, which investigated the performance, problems, and prospects of the oil hub project, illustrates that scores of all sectors are of average level. In terms of performance and prospects, policies such as facility investment, law, and system improvement were determined to be rather high while operational areas such as value-added activities, profitability, and marketing activities were perceived as having more serious problems by respondents. In conclusion, despite the strong potential of Korea's oil hub based on its geographical location, facilities, and oil product capacity, there are problems related to policies, institutions, and investment. In the future, the oil hub business should be reviewed by considering environmental factors, and a drastic improvement plan for attracting foreign investors and oil traders should be established.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.127-145
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• 2009

With increase in oil demand owing to economic growth in Northeast Asia, the establishment of an oil hub in Korea is recently considered by policy and academic circles. This paper aims to suggest strategic schemes on the establishment of Korea's oil hub in Northeast Asia by comparing Korea's conditions as an oil logistics hub with Singapore which has been an oil hub in East Asia until recent year. Quantitative and qualitative analysis methods were employed in order to examine the competitiveness of Korea's oil hub. This research concludes that Korea is very competitive as an oil logistics hub in Northeast Asia, but so much improvements for realizing the project are necessary such as expansion of storage facilities for oil, institutional instruments for facilitating oil logistics and trading and preparation for incentive schemes on foreign investments in oil and its related industries.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.209-227
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• 2012

Northeast Asia where is an epicenter of the global financial crisis's conquest is traditional imbalanced region of oil production and consumption. In recent years, the region has been suffered by the shortage of oil storage and transportation facilities due to surging oil trading and necessity in strategic reserves. Therefore, since independent petroleum logistics with the storage facilities and oil trading hub is required to form efficient oil market in this region. In this study, we analyzed the efficiency of refinery facilities by country that is of importance in being a logistics hub in Northeast Asia by employing non-static and dynamic efficiency analysis, which are a part of DEA(Data Envelopment Analysis) and then policy implications have been drawn. The result illustrates Korea's is the highest country in terms of efficiency of oil refining facilities in Northeast Asia. It implies that Korea has strong position to be the oil hub in Northeast Asia.

• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.149-172
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• 2023

In the Northeast Asian region, including Korea, China, and Japan, with rapid economic growth since the 1990s, intra-regional oil logistics has been increasing. Under such external circumstances, Korea has been pursuing a policy to become a Northeast Asian petroleum logistics hub since the mid-2000s. In order to become a Northeast Asian logistics hub, it is important to establish and promote a business model to promote the value-added oil logistics business. This study aims to propose policies and practical implications for increasing petroleum logistics by analyzing Korea's petroleum logistics business model in Northeast Asia. The results of case analysis through interviews with 23 tank terminal companies are as follows. First, most of the oil storage tank terminal companies interviewed are conducting value-added petroleum logistics such as blending, breaking bulk, and consolidation etc. Second, value-added petroleum logistics is caused by an imbalance in supply and demand among neighboring countries in Northeast Asia. In particular, there is a high demand for breaking bulk and blending connecting Japan, Oceania, the United States, and South America. Third, it is necessary to promote the promotion of value-added logistics by improving infrastructure, institutions, and regulations in response to the demand for value-added petroleum logistics, which will greatly contribute to Korea's policy for being Northeast Asian oil hub.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.549-559
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• 2014

The increasing demand of maritime transportation and port development especially due to increased international trade resulted in a strengthening of regulating the greenhouse gas emissions mainly from ships by International Maritime Organization (IMO). Responding to these international environmental regulation and enforcement, the United States and the European seaports have expanded their Green Port Policy, which can promote the public welfare by reducing pollution caused by ships and ports. Accordingly, in 2010, Korean government enacted "The Framework Act on Low Carbon, Green Growth" and had pushed for all Korean ports to establish and implement their own green port policies. Therefore, the objective of this study is to establish the Green Port Policy Plan for sustainable and environmental friendly operations and developments of Ulsan port, which plans to be the oil hub port of Northeast Asia. To this end, we studied the current status of the environmental policy issues in Ulsan Port and international-&-domestic case studies on establishment of green port policy. With these studies, Ulsan green policy alternatives were identified that through the experts advice, and then were prioritized by adopting AHP survey analysis. As the result of this study, it was notified that LED lights replacement and AMP establishment as the hardware policy and the port environmental management department as the software policy were equally important policy options for the implementation of sustainable Ulsan Green Port Policy to meet port's characteristics.

• Strategy21
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• s.46
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• pp.239-276
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• 2020

The failure of early economic sanctions aimed at hurting the overall economies of targeted states called for a more sophisticated design of economic sanctions. This paved way for the advent of 'smart sanctions,' which target the supporters of the regime instead of the public mass. Despite controversies over the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a coercive tool to change the behavior of a targeted state, the transformation from 'comprehensive sanctions' to 'smart sanctions' is gaining the status of a legitimate method to impose punishment on states that do not conform to international norms, the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction in this particular context of the paper. The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council proved that it can come to an accord on imposing economic sanctions over adopting resolutions on waging military war with targeted states. The North Korean nuclear issue has been the biggest security threat to countries in the region, even for China out of fear that further developments of nuclear weapons in North Korea might lead to a 'domino-effect,' leading to nuclear proliferation in the Northeast Asia region. Economic sanctions had been adopted by the UNSC as early as 2006 after the first North Korean nuclear test and has continually strengthened sanctions measures at each stage of North Korean weapons development. While dubious of the effectiveness of early sanctions on North Korea, recent sanctions that limit North Korea's exports of coal and imports of oil seem to have an impact on the regime, inducing Kim Jong-un to commit to peaceful talks since 2018. The purpose of this paper is to add a variable to the factors determining the success of economic sanctions on North Korea: preventing North Korea's evasion efforts by conducting illegal transshipments at sea. I first analyze the cause of recent success in the economic sanctions that led Kim Jong-un to engage in talks and add the maritime element to the argument. There are three conditions for the success of the sanctions regime, and they are: (1) smart sanctions, targeting commodities and support groups (elites) vital to regime survival., (2) China's faithful participation in the sanctions regime, and finally, (3) preventing North Korea's maritime evasion efforts.