SEOUL, September 15 (AJP) - Hyundai Engineering & Construction said Monday it had secured a contract worth more than $3 billion to build a seawater treatment plant in southern Iraq, one of the largest infrastructure projects the country has awarded in recent years.
The agreement, signed Sept. 14 in Baghdad at the office of the Iraqi prime minister, is part of Iraq’s Gas Growth Integrated Project, an ambitious initiative that spans oil, gas, solar energy and water infrastructure.
Under the contract, Hyundai will construct a facility near Khor Al-Zubair Port, about 500 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, capable of producing five million barrels of water a day.
The treated seawater will be pumped to oil fields in Basra, including West Qurna and South Rumaila, to help extract more crude through enhanced recovery techniques.
The project is backed by a consortium of global energy firms, including TotalEnergies of France, Basra Oil Company under Iraq’s Ministry of Oil, and QatarEnergy, Qatar’s state-owned oil producer. Construction is expected to take just over four years.
Hyundai E&C is no stranger to Iraq. Since it first entered the market in 1978 with the Basra sewage system project, the company has delivered about 40 projects worth $9 billion, ranging from the Al-Mussaib Power Plant and Baghdad Medical City to the Karbala Oil Refinery, which was completed in 2023.
The new water treatment plant marks Hyundai’s largest undertaking in Iraq since Karbala.
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