Top conglomerates made considerable profits in overseas natural resource development last year, in clear contrast to public corporations that recorded huge deficits.

The 84 overseas resource development branches of the country’s top 10 conglomerates achieved 3.5 trillion won ($3.1 billion) in sales and 322.6 billion won in net profit last year, according to Chaebul.com, a website tracking the nation’s family-run conglomerates.

Their net profit rate per sales reached 9.3 percent, higher than the general corporate average of 5.5 percent ― indicating that overseas branches were more profitable than their domestic headquarters.

The nation’s top conglomerate Samsung Group, through its 14 overseas branches, achieved 439.1 billion won in sales and 139.7 billion won in net profit, recording a net profit rate of 31.8 percent.

The most lucrative firm was Korean LGN Ltd., a liquefied natural gas developer founded in Oman by Samsung C&T, which yielded 108 billion won in net profit.

Steelmaker-based POSCO Group, too, gained 112.8 billion won in its resource development sectors and recorded a net profit rate of 22.7 percent last year.

Among the related businesses was the recently-kicked off Myanmar gas field project, led by POSCO’s subsidiary Daewoo International.

Other conglomerates such as LH, SK and Hanwha also achieved 56.5 billion won, 18.9 billion won and 600 million won in net profit, respectively.

Hyundai and GS branches, however, recorded deficits due to business failure in the Middle East and Southeast Asian regions, according to officials.

Lotte and Hanjin, among the top 10 conglomerates, have not established resource development branches in the overseas market.

But prospects in the public sector were dim as most of the key energy-related public corporations recently turned to aborting their overseas development projects.

According to Alio, a public sector management information website, the Korea Gas Corporation decided to terminate its energy exploration in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It also decided to renounce the rights to explore most of the offshore fields in East Timor, a project which has consumed some $320 million over the past seven years, according to officials.

The Korea Resources Corporation and the Korea Southern Power Corporation, too, gave up their years-long development projects in Australia, Peru, and Canada.

Observers pointed out that public corporations aimed at expanding the nation’s energy supplies and had more than immediate benefits in mind, whereas private enterprises tended to be more conservative in investment.

As a compromise, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy recently came up with a blueprint for grouping private enterprises and public corporations in consortiums, with the aim of creating synergy.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)