A scene of the construction of a waste sea water treatment facility by POSCO Construction near POSCO’s 

Gwangyang Steel Complex  in Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province, in Korea.

 The treatment facility resupplies the refined waste sea water back to the steel complex.

 POSCO Construction has become the first construction company in Korea to build a facility to turn warm sea waste water from power plants into soft water, the company said recently.

The facility being built in Dongho Bay in Gwangyang since January, is designed to turn warm sea waste water from the Gwangyang Steel Complex in South Jeolla Province into soft water and resupply it to the steel plant complex to be used as industrial water. The soft treatment plants are already in operation in advanced nations.

The warm sea waste water from the steel plants is around 7 degrees C warmer than ordinary water, and is therefore harmful to fish and plants in the Gwangyang Bay and nearby sea. Seawater treatment facilities are in demand to prevent harm to the ecology in the harbor and the adjacent areas.

POSCO Construction plans to enter the water treatment facility market in the Middle East and other regions in the world once it completes the build-up of the technologies for construction and operation of water treatment plants for the warm sea waste water from industrial plants and power plants around the world.

POSCO E&C signed an agreement worth $400 million with Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corp., a Vietnamese steel subsidiary of the Formosa Group of Taiwan, on Dec. 17, 2012, to construct a facility that will process materials for steel works.

POSCO E&C Vice Chairman & CEO Chung Dong Hwa

The signing ceremony held the same day at the POSCO E&C Tower in Songdo, Incheon, was attended by Lin Hsin-i, Chairman of Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corp., President Yang Hong-chi[TS1], Vice Chairman Chung Dong-hwa of POSCO E&C, and many other VIPs.

Material used in the production of steel, including iron ore, will be variously unloaded from ships, stored, transported, and crushed inside the new facility.

It is to be part of Formosa Ha Tinh Steel in Ha Tinh, Vietnam, which is planned to go fully operational by May 2015. The construction of the facility, capable of processing up to 7 million tons per year, will commence in February next year and is scheduled to end in January 2015.

The capturing of the deal is a result of the recognition of POSCO E&C’s global technological capability and competitiveness in the steelmaking sector, as it beat out 10 leading contractors, including CTCI, Bao Steel, MCC, and others, from Taiwan, China, and other countries.

POSCO E&C expects that this Formosa deal will usher in more opportunities for the company to take part in bids for Formosa Ha Tinh’s subsequent projects, including steel plants and petrochemical facilities.

Its globally recognized technological capability and price competitiveness, as demonstrated in the winning of a deal worth $4.3 billion in December 2011 to construct the Brazil CSP Steel Plant Complex and a steel plant project in Indonesia, is cementing its status as a global leading contractor.

On Oct. 20, 2012, the Incheon Songdo International Business District, whose development had been led by POSCO E&C, was chosen as the location for the head office of the Green Climate Fund. Apparently, the image of Songdo as an eco-friendly and sustainable city contributed to the decision, which itself is a sign that POSCO E&C’s urban development capability is now gaining attention from all around the world. 

On Oct. 24, 2012, POSCO E&C signed a contract with the Caspian Group, a leading Kazakhstani corporation, at the POSCO E&C Tower in Songdo. The contract, worth $640 million is for POSCO E&C to build houses in Koyankus in the Central Asian nation.

These houses will be constructed as part of the first stage of the ‘G4 New Town Development Project,’ which Kazakhstan will complete over a 15-year period. Amounting to over 8,000 units, they will be located within Gate City, 1.5 km off the northern boundary of Almaty, the country’s economic capital. The project term for the construction, including the design stage, will be 69 months, and $640 million has been allocated for the budget.

The G4 New Town Development Project is a mammoth government-private sector joint project, worth as much as $45.3 billion, which will involve the creation of four new towns, whose initials all start with the letter “G”, and which are situated across a 79 km long corridor between Almaty and the lake of Kapchagay.