Korea's state-run energy firms will offload their loss-making overseas assets to improve their balance sheets in the midst of low oil prices as the government pushes for sweeping restructuring and downsizing efforts, the trade ministry said Wednesday.

The Korea National Oil Corp., the Korea Gas Corp. and the Korea Resources Corp. run a combined 91 exploring operations outside Korea as the former Lee Myung-bak administration put its policy priority on winning overseas resource development projects amid higher oil prices. 

But a recent freefall in prices of oil and other resources has dealt a hard blow to the state-run utility firms, with the debt ratio of the KNOC skyrocketing to 453 percent in 2015 from 64 percent in 2007.

"All their overseas assets will be subject to the government's assessment test every year and the government will decide the disposition of investments as a result," Vice Trade Minister Woo Tae-hee said in a briefing. "And the government will closely oversee their costs and profits in order to improve their financial soundness and increase adaptability to a low oil price trend."

He said the overseas assets will be scored and placed into four groups based on present and future profitability, with the lowest-graded ones to be put on sale.

The trade ministry's plan is a follow-up to the government's earlier framework on restructuring state-run energy firms.

Under the plan, the public energy companies will cut their workforces by up to 30 percent and reorganize their business portfolios by 2020, as well as sell off their loss-making assets, in order to streamline the management structure and improve their balance sheets.

KORES will focus on conserving mineral resources, while the Korea Electric Power Corp. will also be exempted from energy-exploring operations.

It also includes a plan to partly open the local electricity and fuel gas supply markets, which are monopolized by KEPCO and KOGAS, respectively, to private companies, while the government will seek to list some big-name corporations, including the Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Corp., on the local stock market. (Yonhap)