Hanwha Engineering and Construction Co. has become the leading construction company in terms of projects won this year by clinching a marine terminal project from Aramco of Saudi Arabia worth $600 million on Nov. 14. The contract was signed in the Middle East country to make the Hanwha Group affiliate the Korean construction company with the largest value of projects won overseas this year with $8.6 billion thus far, the company said. The company also won the Bismaya New City Construction Project in Iraq worth $8 billion, officially signing the contract in May.

The marine terminal project that Hanwha Construction won is the 14th package of the Jazan Oil Refinery and Terminal Project involving the construction of the crude oil supply system and wharf terminal for transportation of refined oil, oil refining facilities, and storage tanks to be completed in early 2016, 38 months from the start date.

The Jazan Oil Refinery and Terminal Project is designed to build an oil refinery capable of refining 400,000 barrels of crude oil daily, located in Jazan Economic City, and a terminal wharf for storage and transportation of refined oil by 2016 for Aramco, the largest oil company in the world.

Vice Chairman Kim Hyun-joong said Chairman Kim Seung-hyun has been the moving force in the great achievement that was possible under his global management strategy based on the Quality Growth 2020 Vision. Under the vision, the group set up a CEO in charge of overseas operations, leading a 100-man task force to work toward winning the New City Construction Project in Iraq with the full support of Chairman Kim.

He continued to urge the return of the chairman to run the group as soon as possible since the awarding of packages numbers 2 and 3 of the Iraqi project, which are worth $10 billion are being delayed due to the absence of the chairman.

The part of the project won by the company includes some tough work as it involves the construction of single point mooring and an 8.8 km-long undersea pipeline connected to the mooring, which are difficult to design and build. Hanwha won the project in an open bidding in competition with other Korean builders based on the recognition of its technological and construction capacities to complete the project on an EPC basis.

 When the project is completed the oil refinery will be able to get the crude oil from a 320,000-ton class oil tanker through SPM, and refined oil products including gasoline will be loaded onto three 120,000-ton class oil tankers at the same time at the marine terminal and shipped overseas.

In the meantime, Hanwha Construction became the first Korean builder to export know-how for the construction of a new city overseas by winning the Bismaya New City Construction Project in Iraq worth $8 billion in May and received an advance payment of $775 million in September.

The company is now building a large camp to undertake the huge project to build a new city on a 5.5 million-pyeong site some 10 km from Baghdad in seven years.

Hanwha announced last year its strategy to be listed among the 100 largest builders in the world by 2015. The company plans to expand its projects overseas to such industrial areas as power plants, chemical EPC plants, solar power, and new and recycled energy to secure a first-tier position in competition with rival builders. By 2015, the company aims to expand the number of its overseas projects by 20 percent annually so that overseas projects could generate 40 percent of its annual sales revenue.