Korea East-West Power joins race for Saudi Arabia’s Amaala development

Korea East-West Power (EWP) building

Korea East-West Power (EWP) has teamed up with French electric utility firm EDF and UAE-based renewable energy company Masdar to bid for a green resort city development project in Saudi Arabia that is estimated at $ 1 billion at least.

According to sources in the energy industry, EWP formed a consortium with Emerge, a joint venture between EDF and Masdar, as well as the Korea Overseas Infrastructure & Urban Development (KIND) to bid for the Amaala development project worth $ 1 billion at least. The consortium sent out a letter of intent in August this year.

Amaala luxury resort complexes [Image provided by Saudi Tourism Authority]

Amaala is Saudi Arabia’s land and property mega project to build luxury resort complexes in coastal areas near the Red Sea. Korea’s EWP hopes to win a bid to build solar energy equipment and energy storage systems. Its bid also includes the operation and management of water and sewage facilities.

This is the latest in a series of construction projects in the Middle East that Korean firms have made bids. Thanks to the construction boom in the region, Korea’s overseas construction orders for this year until early December jumped 20 percent from the same period of last year to $27.2 billion, according to the International Contractors Association of Korea (ICAK) on Monday. Excluding 10 major builders eagerly engaged in overseas construction, the total orders for the first nine months of the year reached $15.5 billion, 14 percent up from a year ago. Still, the volume is only half of what the country earned a decade ago mainly due to the previous government’s nuclear phase-out policy.

Korean engineering and energy companies are expected to continue to make big bets on smart city and green energy development projects in oil-rich countries in the Middle East that are seeking to gradually reduce their dependance on fossil fuel to diversify their revenue sources with ample cash earned from the latest oil market boom.

As Saudi Arabia is expected to make building plans for Neom City starting next year, Seoul is set to achieve overseas construction orders worth $50 billion by 2027.