S. KOREA MAY BUY U.S. OIL TO AID TRADE BALANCE South Korea is studying a plan to buy more coal from the United States and to start importing Alaskan crude oil to help reduce its huge trade surplus with the United States, Energy Ministry officials said today. They said the plan would dominate discussions at two-day energy talks between officials of the two countries in Washington from April 1. Huh Sun-yong, who will attend the talks with three other Seoul government officials, told Reuters that Seoul was "positively considering buying a certain amount of Alaskan oil beginning this year as part of our government's overall plan to reduce a widening trade gap between the two countries." Huh said however that South Korean refineries considered the Alaskan oil economically uncompetitive.