Samsung wins $2.1 bil. power plant order

Kim Dong-woon, executive vice president of Samsung Engineering, left, poses with Kim Suk-won, center, CEO of Balkhash Thermal Power Plant (BTPP), and Astashov Vladimir, executive vice president of BTPP, after signing a contract in Astana, Kazakhstan, Monday. / Courtesy of Samsung Engineering

Samsung Engineering, one of Koreas leading industrial plant builders, said Tuesday that it has won a $2.1 billion project to construct a power plant in Kazakhstan.

Under the deal with Balkhash Thermal Power Plant (BTPP), the engineering firm will build a coal-powered power plant. It was the first construction order Samsung secured from the central Asian country.

The facility capable of generating 1,320 mega watts of electricity will be located in Balkhash Province, the southern part of Kazakhstan, which will help meet the growing electricity demand in Kazakhstan.

Samsung will provide project management services for the engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning processes on a lump-sum turnkey basis. The plant will be completed by 2018. Turnkey is a type of project that is constructed by a developer and sold or turned over to a buy in a ready-to-use condition.

“ Samsung Engineering is looking forward to being part of the modernization of Kazakhstan’s power sector and furthering the strong ties between the two countries,” said Samsung Engineering executive vice president Kim Dong-woon, who attended a signing ceremony in Astana, Kazakhstan, Monday.

The project is Samsung’s fifth power plant order, which has pushed the value of combined orders to $3.6 billion.

On June 22, the builder also won a $2.47 billion project to construct a chemical plant in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Not only in UAE, but also in other Middle-Eastern countries, the builder has won a number of lucrative industrial plant projects.

In March, it won a $1 billion deal to build an oil development-related facility in Iraq. Under the deal, Samsung will build a gas oil separation plant in Basra, Iraq, by July 2014. The plant processes crude oil and separates gases, making the crude economically viable for storage, processing and export.

Last year, the builder completed the world’s largest lubricant base oil plant in Bahrain, capable of producing up to 400,000 tons of oil annually. <The Korea Times/Lee Hyo-sik>

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