Hyundai to build Saudi power plant

SEOUL - Agence France-Presse

South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries said yesterday it had won a $3.2 billion order to build a thermal power plant in Saudi Arabia.

Under the deal with Saudi’s energy authorities, Hyundai will build a 2,640-megawatt power plant at a location 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Jeddah and near the Red Sea by 2017, Hyundai said in a statement.

The capacity of the plant is equivalent to five percent of the Middle East country’s total electricity supply, it said.

South Korean shipbuilders including Hyundai, the world’s largest shipmaker, are trying to strengthen plant construction and other businesses as demand eases from European commercial shippers hit by the eurozone crisis.