South Korea’s Posco Engineering & Construction Co. (Posco E&C) bagged a 950 billion won ($834.2 million) deal to build a coal-fired power plant and related facilities in Bangladesh.

Posco E&C said on Sunday it won a coal-fired power plant construction project in Matarbari Island in a consortium with Japan’s Sumitomo Corp. that leads the 5 trillion won project that aims to build two coal-fired power plants with a capacity of 600 megawatt (MW) each, improve land and construct a harbor at Matarbari in Chittagong Division, 280 kilometers southeast of the capital Dacca.

It is the single largest coal-fired power plant project in Southwest Asia and is expected to take about seven years to complete the entire construction. In the project, Posco E&C is assigned for civil engineering of the plants and construction of raw material treatment facilities worth 950 billion won in total.

With support from the Japanese government, the Bangladesh government has been promoting the Matarbari coal-fired power plant project for several years to ease the electricity shortage in the country. Posco E&C’s latest deal comes after the consortium led by its close partner company Sumitomo successfully won the whole project from State-run Coal Power Generation Company Bangladesh Ltd (CPGCBL) last month.

The latest deal is expected to help Posco E&C speed up its efforts to make inroads into overseas market. It has recently won a 60 billion won deal to improve the water supply facilities in Yangon, the former capital in Myanmar. The Korean builder earlier this year selected Myanmar as one of its five countries that it aims to expand its presence and made a foray into the nation with a hotel construction project in Yangon. The company has secured funds for the two projects partly from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), guaranteeing the completion of the projects.

By Park In-hye

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