Hyundai Engineering & Construction Wins $4.4 Billion Seawater Treatment Plant Contract in Iraq

Part of Iraq's Crude Oil Production Expansion Project

On September 14 (local time), Hyundai Engineering & Construction announced that it had signed a contract for a seawater supply facility project worth 3.16 billion dollars (approximately 4.39 trillion won) at the Iraqi Prime Minister's Office in Baghdad, Iraq.

This project involves the construction of a plant near the Khor Al Zubair port, located about 500 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, capable of producing 5 million barrels of water per day. The water produced at this facility will be used to boost crude oil production at major oil fields in southern Iraq, such as West Qurna and South Rumaila in Basra.

The project is a joint investment by TotalEnergies, a French energy company, Basra Oil Company under the Iraqi Ministry of Oil, and QatarEnergy, the state-owned oil company of Qatar. The construction period is set at 49 months after groundbreaking. The contract signing ceremony was attended by Mohamed Shia Al Sudani, Prime Minister of Iraq; Hayan Abdul Ghani, Iraqi Minister of Oil; Saad Sherida Al Kaabi, Qatari Minister of Energy; and Patrick Pouyanne, CEO of TotalEnergies.

On the 14th (local time), at the contract signing ceremony held at the Iraqi Prime Minister's Office, Ryu Sungan, Head of the Plant Business Division at Hyundai Engineering & Construction (third from the left), Mohamed Shia Al Sudani, Prime Minister of Iraq (fifth from the left), and other officials are taking a commemorative photo. Provided by Hyundai Engineering & Construction

Iraq has the world's fifth-largest proven oil reserves and relies on crude oil exports for more than 90 percent of its total income. The newly awarded seawater treatment facility project is one of Iraq's key policy initiatives aimed at increasing daily crude oil production from 4.2 million barrels to 8 million barrels by 2030.

Hyundai Engineering & Construction first entered Iraq in 1978 with the Basra sewage project Phase 1. Since then, the company has built about 40 major national facilities in Iraq, including the Al-Mussaib thermal power plant, the northern railway, Baghdad Medical City, and the Karbala refinery project, totaling approximately 9 billion dollars. This newly awarded project is the largest since the completion of the Karbala refinery (total project cost: 6.04 billion dollars) in 2023.

A Hyundai Engineering & Construction official stated, "This contract was made possible by the trust we have built over a long period of responsibly carrying out major national projects in Iraq, even amid uncertainties such as war and COVID-19. We will do our utmost to secure an advantageous position in the competition for future orders in various sectors, including refineries, power facilities, and housing."

Meanwhile, Hyundai Engineering & Construction ranked 10th in the world in the 2025 International Contractors list recently announced by the U.S. construction engineering magazine ENR. This is two places higher than last year and the highest among Korean construction companies.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.