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S Korea's Samsung Engineering to build Rayong gas plants

Samsung Engineering Co received a US$1.1 billion contract from Thailand's PTT Plc to build gas plants, the biggest Thai order for South Korea's No. 1 engineering company.

The gas-separation project will be built in Rayong, about 180km southeast of Bangkok, Samsung Engineering said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The factories, to be completed by March 2010, will have the capacity to produce 45.3 million cubic meters of gas a day.

Oil prices, which have almost tripled in the past five years, and economic growth are encouraging nations such as Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Thailand to invest in chemical plants and power stations.

The spending surge will fetch South Korean contractors a record US$24 billion in overseas orders this year, the country's construction ministry has forecast.

The US$1.1 billion deal includes the company's previous contract with the Thai company, which was announced on July 24, to build a chemical plant for US$470 million.

"The US$1.1 billion orders are for two construction contracts," Chitrapongse Kwangsukstith, senior executive vice president of PTT, said by telephone yesterday.

"One for the gas separation plant and the other for a petrochemical plant," Kwangsukstith said.

The gas separation plant is PTT's sixth such facility, which will be part of the company's plan to increase the value of natural gas from fields in the Gulf of Thailand, he said.

With the latest contract, Samsung Engineering has secured 3.8 trillion won (US$4.1 billion) in orders this year, achieving 76 percent of its annual target of 5 trillion won.

The company has so far received more than 90 percent of orders from overseas.

Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co, Samsung Engineering and other South Korean contractors received US$21 billion in overseas orders as of Aug. 29, almost three times the amount a year earlier, the Ministry of Construction & Transportation said on Aug. 30.

Of that total, contracts from the Middle East more than tripled to US$14.5 billion and those from Asia more than doubled to US$3.93 billion, the ministry said.
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