Korea Gas Corp. president Lee Seung-hoon said Sunday that the state-run company will streamline its structure to focus more on the global business, aimed at becoming one of the key players in the international energy market.

“The restructuring will provide the company with the momentum to become the world’s major energy developer, instead of being an importer of natural gas,” Lee said after his plan was approved by the board of directors on July 22.

Lee, who was appointed on July 1, stressed that the global business will be restructured into a “value chain-oriented system,” so that teams in charge of strategy, finance, and operation could work together and control each other’s performances. In order to secure new technology, an R&D center will be established to not only study the possibility of new businesses but also to commercialize it.

KOGAS had earlier announced that it would raise the self-supply rate to 25 percent by 2017 from 9 percent as of 2012.

The public corporation has been engaged in 28 exploration and production, liquefaction and terminal operation projects in 17 countries around the world as of 2013.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)