Drilling ship has arrived...Will the 'King Whale' drift toward impeachment?

'The Great Whale' Drilling Ship Arrives Outside Busan...First drilling around the 17th
Key State Affairs of the Yoon Suk Yeol Government...'Shake' in impeachmentBudget Procurement Plan Disruptions...Government "Convincing the National Assembly as much as possible"
Political uncertainty could make it difficult to attract foreign investment.

[Anchor]
A drilling ship to explore the deep-sea gas field in the East Sea, a key national task of the current government, arrived at the port of Busan early yesterday (9th).

Drilling is in the process of raising the anchor in earnest, but it is in the fog whether it will proceed as originally planned amid the whirlwind of the impeachment.

Reporter Choi Ah-young reports.

[Reporter]
The West Capella, which was in charge of drilling for the first deep-sea gas field project in the East Sea, has arrived at the port of Busan.

The mission is to dig into the most promising blue whale structure and secure a sample rock layer, which is scheduled to be explored off the coast of Yeongil Bay, Pohang, on the 17th.

It is expected that the results will be released in the first half of next year after analyzing whether oil and gas are actually buried.

Drilling has raised the anchor in earnest, but the reef called 'impeachment political situation' is not easy right now.

This is because it is considered a symbolic policy of the current government, where President Yoon Suk Yeol held an emergency briefing earlier and expressed his willingness to develop it himself.

[Yoon Suk Yeol / President (June): There is a very high possibility that up to 14 billion barrels of oil and gas are buried....]

In addition, the Democratic Party of Korea recently processed a reduction of 49.7 billion won out of 50.5 billion won in the first drilling exploration budget, after the National Assembly's Special Committee on Budget and Accounts dealt with it alone.

[Park Sung-taek / First Vice Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy (last 3 days): Preventing us from attempting to identify natural resources in our territory is tantamount to abandoning energy security.]

Without impeachment, there will be no budget negotiations.

Half of the 100 billion won in first drilling costs was from the government's budget, and the plan to finance the rest from the National Oil Corporation was also inevitable.

The government plans to persuade the National Assembly as much as possible before the budget bill is passed by the plenary session.

At the same time, plans to attract foreign investment from the second round of drilling could also be hampered by political uncertainty.

Will the current government's key national affairs in the industrial sector lose their strength in the impeachment process, and the Ministry of Industry and related agencies are preparing to lower themselves and drill.

I'm YTN's Choi Ayoung.


Video editing: Lee Jung-wook