Monday, June 23rd, 2014
SEOUL, KOREA - In time for the state visit to Turkmenistan by President Park Geun-hye, Korean companies such as Hyundai Engineering and LG International won new plant building project worth a total of US$13 billion won. On June 20, President Park met her Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow and signed an agreement for economic cooperation between the two countries. This is the first time for a Korean president to make a state visit to the Central Asian nation.
The consortium of Hyundai Engineering and LG International signed on the same day a preliminary agreement to take the projects to build a gas-based petrochemical plant in Seidi (worth $2 billion) and a gas liquefaction plant ($3 billion) immediately after the summit meeting. The companies will sign the main contract in about six months after a feasibility study. The job of project financing and marketing of the final output will be taken over by LG International.
In the case of the Kiyanly chemical plant project ($3.4 billion), the two parties signed a contract by which Turkmen companies buy a total of $7-billion petrochemical products (high-density polyethylene and polypropylene) for ten years--or $700 million a year for ten years--from LG International which will finance the whole project. As for the desulfurization facility building project under way in Galkynysh by Hyundai Engineering, the Turkmen side will purchase a total of $750-million sulphur products for five years after the plant's completion. The marketing for the sulphur products will be taken over by LG International as well.
In addition, President Berdimuhamedow signed a $100-million contract to import buses from Hyundai Motor to replace all buses operating in the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat. According to a Blue House spokesperson, the Turkmen government had planned to import the buses from Iran but changed its mind after the visit by Korean President Park.