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South Korea will buy an oil sands mine in Canada with a capacity of 250 million barrels in late July, the commerce ministry said on Sunday, as part of its effort to secure the country's oil needs.

State-run Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC) would start constructing a production facility in 2008 in Cold Lake, Alberta, where 175 billion barrels of oil sands are available, the commerce ministry said in a statement.

KNOC planned to produce a maximum of 35,000 barrels of crude oil a day starting from 2010, the statement said.

South Korea, the world's fourth-largest crude oil importer, has to import all its crude oil needs to feed its economy, Asia's fourth largest.