By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter

Samsung Engineering said Friday it had won a $2.7 billion contract from a United Arab Emirates-based refiner to build plants in the region, the biggest order ever obtained by the company.

The Korean builder will construct electricity supply and waste water treatment plants by April 2013, as part of the third package for the Ruwais Refinery Expansion project by TAKREER, a refining affiliate of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), a state-run oil firm.

Established in 1999, TAKREER is in charge of the refining operations of ADNOC. The parent firm has 15 subsidiaries in areas including the refinery, gas and petrochemical businesses, with extensive plans to invest several billions of dollars each year on these projects.

Once completed, the new plants are expected to add 400,000 more barrels of oil to the overall capacity of the Ruwais complex, located 250 kilometers from Abu Dhabi.

This follows Samsung Engineering's earlier contract with ADNOC ― the company won a $1.2 billion fertilizer plant order last month.

Korean companies have won bids for all three remaining parts of the project worth over $10 billion. Earlier this month, SK E&C and GS E&C were selected winners for the first and second packages.

Samsung Engineering expects the project to offer the company a huge opportunity to expand its market in the global construction market.

``This strong partnership with the U.A.E. will allow us to forge future projects with the nation, which has the fifth largest oil and gas reserves in the world,'' President and CEO Jung Yeon-joo said in a statement.

By winning the bid, Samsung Engineering has achieved $7.9 billion in overseas orders this year so far, more than double the $3.8 billion in 2008.

The company topped other Korean builders in foreign projects, ahead of GS E&C with $6.2 billion and Hyundai Heavy Industries with $4.6 billion, Samsung Engineering said.

hckim@koreatimes.co.kr