Joint Venture
A joint venture consisting of Hyundai Engineering & Construction, SK Engineering & Construction, and Italy’s Saipem won the fifth package of the Al Zour New Refinery Project (NRP), worth US$1.5 billion (1.75 trillion won), commissioned by the Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC).
The project, divided into five packages in total, is to build the biggest refinery in the Middle East, which will boost its oil refining output capacity to 615,000 barrels per day.
This package is to construct an oil export terminal, a submarine pipeline, and a wharf for small vessels and other marine facilities for the refinery in the region of Al Zour, 90 km south of Kuwait City. The construction will take 45 months and be completed in 2019.
Hyundai E&C, which leads the consortium, will carry out maritime work worth US$600 million (700.1 billion won), which accounts for 40 percent of the total amount of the contract. Also, SK E&C will be in charge of the US$450 million (525 billion won) undersea construction, which accounts for 30 percent, while Italian builder Saipem will build the plant facilities.
Since advancing the Kuwaiti market with the first and second phases of Shuaiba Harbor Expansion Project in 1977, Hyundai E&C has carried out 58 successful projects worth US$5.4 billion (6.29 trillion won) to build roads, refinery plants, power & distillation plants, and power transmission and transformation plants for 38 years, including the Kuwait Boubyan Sea Port Project Phase one completed in 2012. Currently the company is carrying out a total of three projects including the Sheikh Jaber Causeway Project worth US$2.1 billion (2.45 trillion won).
Since the first business in 1994, SK E&C has taken on the Mina Al Ahmadi (MAA) refinery plant fire recovery project in 2001 and three oil gathering center facilities worth US$2 billion (2.33 trillion won) from 2003 to 2007. As the company has successively won the Al-Zour New Refinery Project Package Five this year after the Clean Fuels Project (CFP) worth US$1.6 billion (1.86 trillion won) last year, its cumulative amount of orders in Kuwait has exceeded US$7 billion (8.16 trillion won).
An official from the joint venture said, “By winning the order this time, we have strengthened our status as the leading builder of Kuwaiti national infrastructure. It will help us take the advantageous position to obtain not only follow-up orders in Kuwait in the future but also similar orders in other countries in the Middle Eastern region.”