South Korea will join the ranks of gas producing countries.

The Korea National Oil Corporation announced that the pilot-production in the Tonghae-1 gas field in the East Sea will begin this weekend and that full-scale commercial production will commence in July.

The nation's first gas field some 60 kilometers off southeastern Ulsan City was discovered in 1998.

The state-run oil company has invested 300 million U.S. dollars in the project to develop the gas field.

The Tonghae-1 gas field has some 50 billion cubic feet of high quality gas and oil condensate reserves. When converted into liquefied natural gas, the deposits amount to some five million tons.

The oil firm said it plans to make 87 million dollars in net profit and save the country 1.2 billion dollars in crude oil and gas imports.