A liquefied natural gas plant at Bonny Island in Nigeria is one of the most outstanding feats of Daewoo Engineering and Construction (E&C).
/ Coutesy of Daewoo E&C
By Kim Tae-gyu
Daewoo Engineering and Construction (E&C) has been well known for taking on challenges that are difficult to achieve and such a spirit keeps helping it come up with substantive results.
One of the country’s top contractors clinched back-to-back exploits this month as it won contracts to set up a fertilizer plant in Morocco and gas processing facilities in Saudi Arabia.
In particular, Daewoo pushed the envelope in Morocco where other Korean builders failed to advance into for various reasons after 2010 when it signed a $1 billion contract to build a mega-sized power plant there.
Saudi Arabia is also dubbed a strategic place for Daewoo, which has strived to beef up its presence there after the world’s runner-up crude oil exporter announced large-sized engineering and construction projects.
“Since our first global foray into a road project in Ecuador in 1976, we have waded into uncharted places,’’ a Daewoo E&C official said.
“Our feats this month in Morocco and Saudi Arabia were also taken in such a spirit, which boosted the diversification of our business areas. We will continue take paths that others cannot.’’
Daewoo E&C has gained the global limelight through chalking up first-mover advantage _ over the past few decades, the firm briskly advanced into Africa where it has racked up more than $21 billion in turnover so far.
When its competitors focused just on engineering and construction in the 1980s and 1990s, Daewoo turned its eyes to higher-value segments including power plants, the upstream sector of petrochemical business and storage facilities.
In 2009, it exported eco-friendly energy technology to global markets for the first time among Korean builders and sold a research nuclear reactor to Jordan the next year, also an unprecedented accomplishment.
Such efforts resulted in the largest ever global turnover of Daewoo E&C last year when the company won a total of $5.06 billion in orders from across the world. This year, it vies to jack up the figure by 26.3 percent to $6.4 billion despite some woes in the international construction business due to the economic downturn.
Daewoo President Seo Jong-uk also expressed his will to put globalization first on the firm’s agenda.
“We will certainly take off as a global E&C leader by creating superior corporate value through fair competition in the global construction market and promoting the technology of life, and fulfilling the social responsibilities of enterprises,’’ Seo said on the firm’s Website.voc200
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