Kwon Young-se, chief of the ruling People Power Party's emergency leadership committee, speaks during a press conference at the National Assembly in Seoul, Feb. 6. Yonhap

The interim leader of the ruling People Power Party on Friday urged further exploratory drilling for potential oil and gas reserves off the nation's East Sea, a day after the government assessed that the project may not be economically feasible.

Kwon Young-se made the calls during an SBS radio interview, stressing the need for the government to look in the long-term and conduct more drilling into the reserves.

"We need to conduct an additional exploratory drilling," he said. "If oil or gas were discovered right away after a single drilling attempt, wouldn't every country be an oil producer?"

Korea conducted its first exploratory drilling into one of the seven potential oil and gas reserves discovered last year in the deep sea off the coast of Yeongil Bay in Pohang, about 270 kilometers southeast of Seoul, for nearly two months from Dec. 20.

The preliminary result of the drilling showed that the prospect has signs of gas but the hydrocarbon saturation rate — a key factor in estimating how much oil and gas can be produced from a reservoir — was not "meaningful enough" to have economic feasibility, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. (Yonhap)