Expert who verified Act-Geo’s analysis on 'East Sea Crude Oil' turns out to be acquaintance of its owner

Vitor Abreu, head of US-based ActGeo, which has analyzed the potential for up to 14 billion barrels of oil and gas reserves in the Yeongil Bay area of Pohang, Gyeongbuk, gives a briefing on the development of deepwater gas fields in the East Sea at the press office of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy at the government‘s Sejong Office Building on Sunday. By Han Soo-bin

An overseas expert who verified the results of the U.S. consultancy Act-Geo’s analysis of the exploration data of the deep-sea oil and gas field in the East Sea has been found to have co-authored a paper by Act-Geo’s owner and advisor Vitor Abreu. Questions arise about the Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC)'s criteria for selecting an advisory group and the objectivity of evaluation.

According to data obtained by Kim Won-yi, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), through an information disclosure request on June 10, the KNOC signed an "Overseas Expert Advisory Contract for the Evaluation of Comprehensive Technology in the Ulleung Basin in the East Sea" in July last year. Through this, professors David Mohrig and Sergei Pommel from the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin participated in the advisory group.

According to the report by Kyunghyang Shinmun, Mohrig was a co-author of Abreu's paper published in 2003. The paper, titled “Lateral accretion packages (LAPs): An important reservoir element in deep water sinuous channels,” was published in June 2003 in the Journal of Marine and Petroleum Geology, published by Elsevier.

The paper was based on seismic data from 17 blocks offshore Angola and addressed the relationship between deep-water sinuous channels and the possibility of crude oil storage. A person who conducted a joint study with Abreu appears to have participated in Act-Geo's verification of the evaluation results.

President Yoon Suk-yeol, in his first national briefing on the possibility of a crude oil and gas field on June 3, said that Act-Geo's analysis “has been verified by leading research institutes and experts.” The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy also explained that it was “verified by an advisory group composed of domestic and foreign experts.”

The ministry and the KNOC said it was “difficult to disclose the names of the experts involved in the consultation without their consent.” However, the KNOC did name the researchers in the “Report on the Results of Overseas Expert Consultation on the Comprehensive Technical Assessment of Ulleung Basin in the East Sea and Payment of Fees” posted on the Ministry of the Interior and Safety's information disclosure portal on October 11 last year. However, the contents of the document itself were set to be private.

“The overseas advisors were selected solely on the basis of their expertise and Abreu was not involved in the selection process,” the KNOC said. “However, we did not know in advance that Professor Mohrig and Abreu were co-authors of the paper, and we believe that Mohrig acted impartially in his role as an advisor.”

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.