Modernizing Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan is home to the Ertugrul Gazi Mosque in Ashgabat, the capital city.
Turkmenistan is home to the Ertugrul Gazi Mosque in Ashgabat, the capital city.

 

A consortium of Hyundai Engineering and LG International practically won an oil refining and gas plant project in Turkmenistan totaling 5 trillion won (US4.6 billion. 

Hyundai Engineering and LG International announced on April 9 that they will sign a US$940 million (990 billion won) deal with Turkmenistan's state-run oil company to modernize its oil refining facilities when Gurbanguly M. Berdimuhamedov, president of Turkmenistan, visits South Korea during April 11 to 14. 

Also, both companies are also scheduled to sign a US$3.89 billion (4.08 trillion won) “framework agreement” with the country's state-run gas company to build a gas-to-liquid (GTL) plant. The formal contract of the GTL project is expected to be signed when the financing arrangements are settled.

The project to modernize the oil refineries is designed to construct facilities that remove sulfur from gasoline and diesel produced by plants located 500 kilometers northwest of its capital, Ashgabat. It is the follow-up project of oil refiners in Türkmenbaşy, which was won in 2012, and it will take 42 months to be completed.

The GTL plant project is to construct a plant near Ashgabat that produces diesel and naphtha by processing an annual 3.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and it will take 63 months to be completed. 

The large-scale deals came after President Park Geun-hye visited Turkmenistan in June of last year as part of her three-country tour in the region. As the discussion over the second gas petrochemical plant project has also kept going on after the preliminary proposal submitted, both companies expect that the project will come together soon. 

Starting with the Galkynysh gas desulfurization facility worth US$1.4 billion (1.53 trillion won) in Turkmenistan in 2009, both companies won orders for Türkmenbaşy oil refineries worth US$530 million (578.23 billion won) in 2012, Kiyanly oil refinery plant worth US$240 million (261.84 million won), and the petrochemical plant project worth US$3.44 billion (3.75 trillion won) in 2014. 

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