Seoul eyes $60 bn overseas orders

SINGAPORE: South Korean companies may win record overseas plant orders of more than $60 billion this year as growing demand in the Middle-East boosts contracts for power plants, floating production facilities and refineries.

Orders from overseas customers more than doubled from a year earlier to $50.7 billion by the end of the third quarter, South Korea’s ministry of knowledge economy said on Sunday. The Middle-East accounts for about 72% of the total as increasing revenue amid high crude prices encourages the region’s oil producers to spend more money on energy infrastructure, the ministry said in a statement. South Korean companies are capitalising on such investments, it said.

“Middle East countries appreciate the efficiency of the South Korean model,” Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, said by telephone from Dubai. “It’s efficient and it’s affordable.” For South Korean companies, deep-pocketed Middle Eastern countries are an attractive market, Karasik said.

Korea Electric Power Corp won the largest order so far this year, an $18.6 billion contract to build four nuclear reactors in the United Arab Emirates in late December. Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co said on September 9 it received an order to build a 2,800-megawatt power plant in Saudi Arabia, worth $3.39 billion.