South Korea has signed a deal to develop three oil fields in the United Arab Emirates.

Under the deal signed Monday, a consortium led by state-owned Korea National Oil Corporation will acquire a 40 percent stake in the oil fields owned by the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, with estimated oil reserves of 570 million barrels.

The Seoul government said the consortium is expected to invest $2 billion of the estimated $5 billion cost of developing the fields, which are expected to yield up to 43,000 barrels of oil per day.

Production is to begin as early as 2014.

Calling it "a great stride on the path toward energy security," South Korean President Lee Myung-bak welcomed the deal in his biweekly radio address Tuesday, saying: "(South) Korea has obtained the right to develop oil fields in the Middle East, which has so far seemed to be beyond our reach. Now, Korea has become one of a select few oil developing nations."

Of the approximately 239,000 barrels of oil a day South Korea imports, about 21,000 barrels a day comes from Iran, the Financial Times reports. However, a sanctions regime, which includes the United States and some European countries, against Iranian oil is leading Seoul to reconsider Iran as a source.

Lee said that South Korea is also engaged in negotiations with the United Arab Emirates to develop another oil field, saying it has been given "a priority right" to participate in the development "of a gigantic oil field" that could produce more than 1 billion barrels."

The United Arab Emirates has the world's sixth largest oil reserves.

Lee noted that his country's self-sufficiency for petroleum and natural gas rose to 14 percent, from a 4 percent range since he became president in 2007. Seoul aims to boost that to 20 percent this year and to 35 percent by 2020.

But South Korea, the world's fourth-largest importer of crude oil, experienced a series of blackouts last September.

"For the sake of sustained economic growth and energy security, the country needs to develop oil, natural gas and other mineral resources without fail," Lee said.

The deal represents "a very different sort of balance of powers" compared to 1939 when a consortium of western oil companies struck the emirate's first oil deal, Samuel Ciszuk, an oil consultant at KBC Energy Economics in London told The National newspaper.

"It was the supermajors and the host governments calling the shots.

"Today Abu Dhabi is calling the shots. They're choosing whoever they want to and when the big concessions come up for renewal or renegotiation, it will be based on their definition of what they want."