Top of the list for new sanctions on North Korea after its sixth nuclear test is an oil embargo, which analysts say would have a crippling effect on the wider economy -- but might do little to curb its weapons programmes.

And whether Pyongyang's key ally China would ever be willing to back such a move at the United Nations Security Council -- where it is a veto-wielding permanent member -- let alone enforce it, is also in doubt.

North Korea has little oil of its own and relies on fuel imports to keep its citizens and soldiers moving.

China is by far its biggest trading partner, responsible for around 90 percent of its commerce.

But Chinese Customs have not reported figures for crude oil exports to the North since 2014, shrouding the situation in secrecy.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) says estimates suggest Pyongyang imports about 10,000 barrels of crude oil a day, almost all of it from China and going to its sole functioning refinery, the Ponghwa Chemical Factory.

At a world market price of $50 a barrel, that would be worth around $180 million a year.

In addition, according to figures from the International Trade Centre, a joint World Trade Organisation-United Nations agency, the North imported $115 million-worth of refined oil products -- which could include petrol and aircraft fuel -- from China last year. Another $1.7 million-worth came from Russia.

A ban on supplies would be devastating for ordinary North Koreans, the Nautilus Institute think tank said in a report.

"People will be forced to walk or not move at all, and to push buses instead of riding in them," said the document by Peter Hayes and David von Hippel. "There will be less light in households due to less kerosene."

The ban will lead to "more deforestation", they warned, as North Koreans will be forced to cut down trees to produce charcoal, leading to "more erosion, floods and more famine" in the already impoverished country.

But Pyongyang, which embraces a "Songun" or "military-first" would immediately restrict supplies to private citizens, they said, and a ban would have "little or no immediate impact" on the North's army or its missile and nuclear programmes.

The military, which uses about a third of North Korea's oil supplies, has stockpiles for at least "a year of routine, non-wartime usage", they said, and could fight for about a month before running out of fuel.

Oh Joon, a former South Korean ambassador to the United Nations, told AFP that a suspension of oil imports would be "fatal" to the North.

"But it won't be easy to get China to agree" to such a move, he added.

- Lips and teeth -

At the United Nations, diplomats say the US wants to target oil, tourism and North Korean labourers sent abroad in a new set of Security Council sanctions -- which would be the eighth imposed on the country.

South Korean President Moon Jae-In has called for an oil ban to be seriously considered, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has also backed stronger measures.

China is yet to be drawn, and Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed further measures as "useless", while warning of the risk of "global catastrophe".

Beijing fears a collapse of the regime in Pyongyang that could send refugees fleeing over its border, and -- worse -- see US troops stationed on its frontier in a unified Korea.

"If oil is cut off, that risks the regime falling," said Jean-Vincent Brisset, a researcher at the Institute for International and Strategic Affairs in Paris.

The relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang was forged in the blood of the Korean War, when Mao Zedong sent millions of "volunteers" to fight US-led United Nations forces to a standstill.

Mao described them as close as "lips and teeth", and China has long been accused of failing to enforce sanctions even after voting for them at the UN.

But Beijing has become increasingly exasperated with its neighbour.

Former South Korean vice foreign minister Kim Sung-han said: "Regime collapse means China will lose all its strategic interests in having North Korea as a buffer state."

The only way to persuade Beijing to embrace and enforce an oil ban would be if its own interests were threatened, such as by US secondary sanctions targeting its banks and businesses, he said.

"China will only consider it if it's pushed to a dead-end by the US."

That would infuriate Pyongyang, said Wang Dong of the School of International Studies at Peking University.

"If China cuts the supplies, North Korea may show very fierce resistance," he said. "The situation on the peninsula would also deteriorate sharply."

North Korea's nuclear test: what we know
Seoul (AFP) Sept 6, 2017 - North Korea conducted a sixth nuclear test at the weekend, saying it was a hydrogen bomb that could be fitted onto a missile, prompting global condemnation and calls for further sanctions.

The North says it needs nuclear arms to protect itself, but the US has accused the isolated nation of "begging for war".

Pyongyang carried out its first nuclear test in 2006. It also has a rocketry programme and in July tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that appeared to bring much of the mainland US into range.

Here are some key questions around the latest explosion.

How big was the blast?

Calculating the yield from the blast involves taking into account several different factors, many of which are unknown.

As well as the magnitude of the earthquake -- given as 6.3 by the US Geological Survey, although some monitors give lower figures -- the depth at which the device was detonated is crucial, as is the type of rock surrounding it.

South Korea's defence minister put the yield at 50 kilotons. The US-based 38 North website says 100 kilotons or more. Japan on Wednesday upgraded its estimate to around 160 kilotons.

The numbers are likely to continue to change as more information emerges before a consensus is reached.

But all the estimates far exceed the 15 kilotons of the US device that devastated Hiroshima in 1945.

The bigger a bomb is, the less accurately an ICBM carrying it needs to be aimed to ensure a given target is destroyed.

What kind of bomb was detonated?

Atomic or "A-bombs" work on the principle of nuclear fission, where energy is released by splitting atoms of enriched uranium or plutonium encased in the warhead.

Hydrogen or H-bombs, also known as thermonuclear weapons, work on fusion and are far more powerful, with a nuclear blast taking place first to create the intense temperatures required.

Many experts say Sunday's blast had the hallmarks of a two-stage hydrogen bomb. But an enhanced fission device, in which fusion fuel is used to boost the yield from an atomic bomb, is also a possibility.

No foreign government has so far confirmed the North's assertion that it was an H-bomb.

Chinese, South Korean and Japanese monitors have not detected elevated radiation levels or chemical isotopes that could give clues as to what it was, even though a second tremor after the explosion led to suggestions the rock at the test site had collapsed.

Satellite pictures released Wednesday showed small landslides at the Punggye-ri test site, but no crater from a cave-in, which could have allowed radioactive substances to enter the atmosphere.

The 'Peanut' and the 'Disco Ball'

Hours before the blast, the North released pictures of leader Kim Jong-Un at the Nuclear Weapons Institute inspecting an hourglass-shaped silver device that looked around a metre long.

The North's official KCNA news agency said that it was an H-bomb with an "explosive power that can be adjusted from tens to hundreds of kilotons depending on the target".

All its components were domestically produced, it added.

The device, quickly dubbed the "Peanut" by analysts, was larger than the "Disco Ball", said to be a miniaturised atomic bomb, that Kim was pictured with in March last year.

Pyongyang previously claimed to have successfully tested an H-bomb after its fourth blast in January last year, but experts doubted the claim at the time due to the relatively weak yield.

Analysts say that the Peanut could be a model, rather than the actual device that was detonated on Sunday.

But South Korea's defence minister said Seoul believed the North had succeeded in building a bomb that could fit into an ICBM.

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US says N. Korea 'begging for war,' pushes for tougher UN sanctions
United Nations, United States (AFP) Sept 5, 2017
The US has accused North Korea of "begging for war" and pushed for the "strongest possible measures" on Pyongyang following its sixth and most powerful nuclear test. As world powers scramble to react to the latest grave step in the North's rogue weapons programme, South Korea launched major live-fire naval drills to warn its isolated neighbour against any provocations at sea Tuesday morning ... read more

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