Oil in North Korea

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was reviewing the Marmot's blog and he came upon this: The Marmot's Hole - Brits to drill for oil in N. Korea?

It seems as though a British oil and gas company will be doing some "technical assisting" of the North Koreans as they begine to develop their oil industry. Humm...

Of course the best part of Robert's post was his line at the end: I think it's at this point that Brian at Cathartidae would joke (?) that Pyongyang had better hope Aminex doesn't find anything; otherwise, with a nuclear program AND oil, Kim Jong-il is truly screwed.

Of course, other questions are raised by this article. Real serious questions...

1) If North Korea has significant oil reserves, why would they need a nuclear "power" program too?

2) Would/Could North Korea produce enough oil to export into the world market? If so, would that give the regime enough hard cash currency to prop it up and advance their nuclear "power" program?

3) If oil became a significant source of income for North Korea, would Kim Jong-Il start a North Korean version of the Beverly Hillbillies? It would be called the Pyongyang Hillbillies and Kim Jong-Il would be the Jed Clampitt character.

Your Maximum Leader wonders.

Carry on.