Oil embargo could add fuel to the fire — Analysts
SEOUL: Top of the list for new sanctions on North Korea after its sixth nuclear test is an oil embargo, which analysts say would have a crippling effect on the wider economy – but might do little to curb its weapons programmes.
And whether Pyongyang’s key ally China would ever be willing to back such a move at the United Nations Security Council – where it is a veto-wielding permanent member – let alone enforce it, is also in doubt. North Korea has little oil of its own and relies on fuel imports to keep its citizens and soldiers moving.
China is by far its biggest trading partner, responsible for around 90 per cent of its commerce.
But Chinese Customs have not reported figures for crude oil exports to the North since 2014, shrouding the situation in secrecy.
The US Energy Information Administration ( EIA) says estimates suggest Pyongyang imports about 10,000 barrels of crude oil a day, almost all of it from China and going to its sole functioning refinery, the Ponghwa Chemical Factory.
At a world market price of 50 a barrel, that would be worth around US$180 million a year.
In addition, according to figures from the International Trade Centre, a joint World Trade Organisation- United Nations agency, the North imported US$ 115 million-worth of refined oil products – which could include petrol and aircraft fuel – from China last year. Another US$ 1.7 million-worth came from Russia.
A ban on supplies would be devastating for ordinary North Koreans, the Nautilus Institute think tank said in a report.
“People will be forced to walk or not move at all, and to push buses instead of riding in them,” said the document by Peter Hayes and David von Hippel.
“There will be less light in households due to less kerosene.”
The ban will lead to ‘ more deforestation’, they warned, as North Koreans will be forced to cut down trees to produce charcoal, leading to “more erosion, floods and more famine” in the already impoverished country.
But Pyongyang, which embraces a “Songun” or “military- first” would immediately restrict supplies to private citizens, they said, and a ban would have “little or no immediate impact” on the North’s army or its missile and nuclear programmes.
The military, which uses about a third of North Korea’s oil supplies, has stockpiles for at least “a year of routine, nonwartime usage”, they said, and could fight for about a month before running out of fuel.
Oh Joon, a former South Korean ambassador to the United Nations, told AFP that a suspension of oil imports would be “fatal” to the North.
“But it won’t be easy to get China to agree” to such a move, he added.
At the United Nations, diplomats say the US wants to target oil, tourism and North Korean labourers sent abroad in a new set of Security Council sanctions – which would be the eighth imposed on the country.
South Korean President Moon Jae- In has called for an oil ban to be seriously considered, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has also backed stronger measures.
China is yet to be drawn, and Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed further measures as ‘ useless’, while warning of the risk of ‘global catastrophe’.
Beijing fears a collapse of the regime in Pyongyang that could send refugees f leeing over its border, and – worse – see US troops stationed on its frontier in a unified Korea. — AFP