North Korea could use coal if oil ban takes effect

Nation also could order citizens to cut back use

HONG KONG — As the U.S. and its allies look to impose even stricter measures against North Korea, leader Kim Jong Un could find inspiration from oppressive regimes of yesteryear in Nazi Germany and apartheid-era South Africa.

Both managed to survive oil blockades with the help of liquefying coal, a technology that dates to the 1920s. North Korea has ample reserves of the fuel, at one point leading the world in anthracite coal exports.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson raised the prospect of cutting off North Korea’s oil supply less than two hours after North Korea fired another missile over Japan on Friday. In a statement, he called on authorities in Beijing and Moscow to take new measures against Kim’s regime, noting that China supplies North Korea with most of its oil.

“The trouble is that North Korea does not, strictly speaking, need oil from China,” Pierre Noel, a senior fellow for economic and energy security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said by phone. “The idea that an oil embargo would be so drastically painful that they will say, ‘Sorry, we’re back to the negotiating table,’ is just totally not credible.”

North Korea would need to liquefy about 6 million tons of coal in order to cover an amount equal to its 2015 oil imports, according to Noel’s calculations in an IISS report published this month, which were based on output statistics from U.S. and Chinese coal liquefaction plants. In 2015, North Korea shipped 25 million tons of coal to China, and is restricted to exporting 7.5 million tons a year under U.N. sanctions in 2016 — leaving plenty left for fuel conversion.

China and Russia resisted a full oil embargo in U.N. sanctions announced this week following North Korea’s most powerful nuclear test, instead only agreeing to limits on fuel sales. Russian leader Vladimir Putin last week rebuffed a request from South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in for an oil ban, saying it would probably hurt the ordinary people more than the regime’s leaders.

China strictly implements U.N. resolutions, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing on Thursday in rebuffing Tillerson’s call for more action.

“China is not the key to the North Korean problem,” she said. “It’s irresponsible and unhelpful to unjustly blame others and shirk responsibilities in any form.”

North Korea can also order its compliant citizenry to cut down on energy consumption, energy analysts Peter Hayes and David von Hippel wrote in a report this month for the Berkeley, California-based Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability. They estimated that North Korea would be able to reduce its non-military oil consumption by about 40 percent of its annual use via substitution or simply using less.

“These sanctions are likely to be counterproductive immediately,” Hayes said by email of the latest U.N. measures. “And in the long term — tactically and strategically stupid, which is quite an achievement.”

North Korea had reserves of about 600 million metric tons of coal in 2014, according to BP Plc.

The Associated Press Kim Jong Un gestures at soldiers at Thursday’s test launch of an intermediate-range missile that flew over Japan. The U.S. and its allies responded to the launch by raising the prospect of cutting off North Korea’s oil supply.