GS E&C Sweeps Egyptian Projects

Company's wins trust, confidence of host country by showing off its expertise in Egyptian projects

GS Engineering and Construction Co. is nearing completion of its oil refinery construction project in Mostorod, Egypt, some 20 km from Cairo. The oil refinery will refine some 80,000 barrels of crude oil daily when it goes on stream in 2012.
The leading construction company won the $2.1 billion project in August last year, surprising the construction community in the country and overseas just as the company finished the construction of the $350 million petrochemical plant in Alexandria, Egypt last year.
The Egyptian project is the largest ever ordered by the North African country in years and GS E&C deserves the surprise and envy by its rivals at home and abroad as the plant project is highly lucrative compared to civil and other plain construction projects as it involves a high-degree of technology with high value-added portion.
The project called for repairing and improving the dilapidated oil refinery in Mostorod and build a new 4th generation oil refinery right by
the old one at a 300,000 square meter site and connect the two oil refineries so they can start operation in 2012 with construction slated to begin in January next year.
GS E&C set up a special task force staffed by 100 engineers,and is engaged in design and material purchasing, along with other work to prepare for the launch of the construction in January.
The project is a special one for the company as the company has to take care of from designing to test-run, all the processes of the completion of the project, which sets it apart from the general projects won by Korean builders overseas.
The company dispatched a team already to Cairo to take care of various pre-construction work including setting up a camp and paper work.
The projected oil refinery will be modeled after the oil refinery of GS Caltex Oil in Yeosu, Korea, will produce 80,000 barrels of various oil products including 14,000 barrels of gasoline and 32,000 barrels of diesel daily.
Project manager Lee Hong-jong, who inspected the site five times, said since the new oil refinery is completed, it will contribute to preventing severe pollution problem in the Cairo proper as it will produce high octane gasoline, adding that they will do their utmost to make Egypt be aware of the construction expertise of the Korean construction industry.
One of the reasons for GS E&C was able to sign an exclusive contract was due to its superb work on the petrochemical plant in Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast in July.
The plant produces line alkyl benzene(lab) from synthetic resin and the company built it jointly with Enppi and Petrojet after winning the project in 2005.
GS E&C landed the contract as the Egyptian authorities looked for an able foreign construction firm as Enppi and Project, both local construction firms which got the project had problems severe enough for them to finish the project on time.
The Egyptian authorities picked GS E&C over Technip of France, from the narrowed list of the candidate firms. The two firms had the experience of building a similar plant in Qatar and GS E&C got the final nod from the Egyptian authorities as they thought the company has the capacity to complete the work on time.
The company had to fight an extremely hot weather in the region hovering around 40 degrees centigrade every day during the summer months and other difficulties, but finished the work on time.
Park Jae-won, the project manager, said the Egyptians were very much moved by GSCON's success, which solidified the company's relations with the north African country. The hardest part of the project was making the ground of the site harder and laying the pipeline 220,000 km and cable for 520,000 km under the hot sun, the manager recalled. nw

GS E&C CEO Kim Kab-ryul

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