SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – South Korea has extracted gas hydrate – an alternative fuel source Seoul hopes might help reduce its heavy dependance on oil imports – in its eastern territorial waters, a news report said Sunday.

Gas hydrate, a crystalline compound of water and natural gas found in ocean beds, can be converted for use as liquid natural gas. The gas hydrate extracted last week in waters about 85 miles northeast of the southeastern industrial city of Pohang was of top quality, Yonhap news agency reported.

It said the area is within South Korea’s exclusive economic zone, and that the country plans to start drilling at five spots there in September.

“The discovery is important because it shows for certain that a pool of gas hydrate is there,” Yonhap quoted Lee Seung-woo, head of an oil field development team in the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, as saying.

Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment Sunday.

The world is believed to have about 10 trillion tons of gas hydrate deposits.

Yonhap cited scientists as saying the deposit in South Korea’s eastern waters, estimated at 600 million tons, can meet the country’s natural gas needs for roughly 30 years.

Resource-poor South Korea, the world’s 10th-largest economy, imports virtually all of its oil.