KEPCO KPS, a public entity specializing in power generation and transmission facility O&M, saw its sales in the overseas business surpass 200 billion won, the best-ever achievement, in its history.
KEPCO KPS posted 209.4 billion won in sales in the overseas business on a consolidated basis last year, an about 31 percent surge over the previous year.
The landmark achievement was owed by outcomes of KEPCO KPS’ efforts to explore overseas markets, including emerging countries, by making the most of overseas O&M business capabilities the power company has built based on its technologies after handing over the saturated domestic power O&M market to the private sector.
KEPCO KPS is a public corporation providing total plant solutions, including plant facility diagnosis and performance improvement, O&M at home and abroad, renewable EPC, industrial facilities, and power transmission and substations.
KEPCO KPS set a first step at the overseas market in 1981 by landing a project related to the planned preventative maintenance of a thermal power plant in South Bagdad from the Iraqi government.
Since then, the company expanded its overseas business chiefly in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, and established the business development office in 1993 to enter into the overseas projects in earnest.
It received the order for the restoration work of the Malaya Thermal Power Plant in the Philippines in 1996 and expanded its business to Southeast Asia.
Now it engages in a variety of maintenance business for hydraulic generator and pumped storage power plants in some 25 countries, including the U.S., Australia, Japan, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, the Republic of South Africa, Madagascar, and Sudan.
“Thanks to such aggressive business activities based on state-of-the-art technology, the amount of overseas orders we received soared from just $2 million in 1982 to $100 million in 2007 and further to $150 million in 2008.
In 2009, the figure skyrocketed to $200 million owing to soaring demands from Southwest Asia, the Middle East and Africa, including the Ambatovy Thermal Power Plant in Madagascar and the Wardha Thermal Power Plant in India,” he explained.
“In recognition of our brilliant business performance in foreign countries, we finally won the ‘$20 million export tower’ award from the Seoul government in 2010,” he noted.
As KEPCO KPS won an O&M project of a diesel-powered plant in India in 1998, the power company has ramped up capabilities to explore overseas markets.
Thanks to these efforts, KEPCO KPS saw sales in overseas business surge from 50 billion won in 2009 to 100 billion won in 2014 and 150 billion won in 2020 before topping 200 billion won last year.
In 2012, KEPCO KPS captured IPP3 600MW diesel-power plant O&M project in Jordan, which priced at 1.1 trillion won, the biggest-ever single overseas one.
The power company showed signs of continued growth by winning Bhavnagar Energy O&M project in India.
These achievements are attributable to the fruition of KEPCO KPS’s efforts to continue to explore emerging markets based on its O&M capabilities the power company has accumulated on the back of the growth of the Korean energy power market.
In particular, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit the world of late, the technology power KEPCO KPS has secured so far and amicable relationships the power company has maintained have played a part in achieving the landmark feat.
Pakistan’s Daharki Combined Cycle Power Plant topped a safety evaluation of power plants by NEPRA while the Indian resources and energy company Vedanta Group designated KEPCO KPS as the “Best Performance Partner.” KEPCO KPS’ reputation in the overseas business has mounted.
Future outlooks of KEPCO KPS’s overseas business are rosy. The number of the power company’s worksites reaping more than 10 billion won in annual sales has increased to four, so KEPCO KPS’s overseas business is predicted to continue growth in the years to come.
KEPCO KPS President Kim Hong-yeon said, “As performance improvement projects of old power plants are on the rise globally, experiences and technology power our company has so far accumulated is leading to rising sales.
KEPCO KPS plans to achieve sustainable growth through creation of future growth engines by expanding the overseas business through overseas market exploration and equity investment,” Kim said.
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