With completing construction of the plant that has a total production capacity of 2,750MW and can supply 10% of overall power consumption of Saudi Arabia, the company has won another high confidence in construction abilities
On April 10, Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) announced that it recently completed construction of the world’s largest gas combined cycle power plant in Saudi Arabia.
The new plant built in Jubail, the eastern part of Saudi Arabia, has a production capacity of 2,750MW and a daily water storage capacity of 800,000 tons. The plant is going to power the world’s biggest Jubail industrial complex and major Saudi Arabian cities, including the capital Riyadh. The plant will supply 10% of the nation’s overall energy consumption, enough to power 2 million homes.
Back in 2007, HHI formed a consortium with American GE and a French company SIDEM, winning US$2.7 billion worth of power plant and desalination plant projects from the Saudi Arabian state-run company MARAFIQ.
Among the orders, HHI took charge of the construction of a US$1.1 billion worth gas combined cycle power plant and completed the project just in 3 years and 9 months. Since October 2009, HHI has commercially operated the plant while progressively completing the project. From the beginning, many experts in the industry have paid huge attention to this project, with numerous VIPs from around the world visiting the site.
Back in 2009, Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz visited the construction site with important government officials, while H.R.H Crown Prince Philippe of Belgium visited the site in November in the same year.
During their visits, the VIPs were briefed about the progress of the construction project, praising HHI’s excellent technologies and construction skills.
Such high confidence in HHI’s construction skills has earned the company a series of large-scale projects in the Middle East region. HHI successfully won a US$1.6 billion worth 1,729MW Riyadh gas combined cycle power plant contract from Saudi Arabia in June 2010, followed by a 1 trillion won worth large offshore plant project from Qatar in January 2011.
HHI is currently working on a total of US$10 billion worth of power plant projects in the Middle East region, including Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh gas combined cycle power plant, Bahrain’s Al Dur desalination plant, and Qatar’s Pearl gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant.
“With the successful completion of the MARAFIQ plant project in Saudi Arabia, HHI has once again shown its outstanding construction abilities. This success will positively help us to win more projects in the Middle East region,” said Chun In-soo, COO of Industrial Plant and Engineering Division of Hyundai Heavy Industries.
The Middle East is the world’s biggest plant market, with economy magazine MEED expected to see an annual 8% growth in energy consumption among member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) by 2019. Therefore, the power-generating capacity of 88GW built in 2009 will be expanded to 185GW in 2019, equivalent to US$117 billion.