SEOUL, 30 NOV, 04 (WAM) -Doosan Heavy Industries & ConstructionCo. said Tuesday that it would meet its bid deadline for state-owned DaewooHeavy Industries & Machinery Ltd. despite a failure to inspect Daewoofacilities.
The government named Doosan as the preferred bidder for Daewoo Heavy atthe beginning of this month and set a Nov. 30 deadline for the completionof due diligence plant inspections and a formal bid. However, the Daewoo Heavy union, which fears a mass layoff by Doosan,vowed to block any inspection attempt. Doosan officials said yesterday that they have nearly finished negotiationswith the government's Korea Asset Management Co., Daewoo Heavy's largestshareholder, and that a purchase contract will be sent today to the PublicFund Oversight Committee of the Ministry of Finance and Economy for approval.Daewoo Heavy is Korea's largest construction equipment maker. It wasplaced under the state-ownership after the parent Daewoo Group collapsedin 1999.
Doosan Heavy, the nation's No.1 plant equipment maker, wants to buy theformer Daewoo affiliate to diversify its business portfolio Doosan HeavyIndustries & Construction (President & CEO: Kim Dae-joong) was awardeda US$270 million contract to build a Power and Desalination Plant forQatar in the Middle East.
Doosan announced on the 4th that it has received a letter of award fromQatar General Electricity & Water Corporation on the construction of aprivate desalination/power plant in Ras Laffan, and that the main contractwill be signed at the end of this month.The Ras Laffan projectis to build Qatar's largest power and desalinationplant about 80km north of Qatar's capital, Doha, with a daily capacityof 270,000 tons (60 million gallons) and 1,025MW of electricity. It'san emergency project financed by the Qatar government to prepare for the2006 Asian Games and supply water and electricity to over 700,000 peopleliving in the area.
In the project, Doosan is to carry out everything from equipment manufacturingto construction and testing on turnkey basis. The plant unit 1 is scheduledto be completed in April 2006 and the units 2~4 by May 2008. Since April this year, Doosan won all the desalination projects in theMiddle East including Kuwait, Libya, Oman and Qatar for a total contractvalue of 1 billion 50 million US dollars. Starting from the 1990's, Dozen has so far been awarded desalination contractsvalued at over three billion dollars in total and built desalination plantswith a total capacity of 500 million gallons perday. Doosan is currentlythe number one supplier of desalination systems with30% market share. Lee Yoon-young, vice-president of Doosan Heavy Industries & Constructionand director of Desalination BG, said, "The significance lies in the factthat we have expanded our market reach to Oman, Qatar and other partsof the Middle East, whereas the desalination market has been limited toSaudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait until last year. Since Doosan has proprietaryengineering and manufacturing technologies for desalination systems, weexpect that we can substantially increase the added value also in otherrelated domestic industries due to the characteristics of plant industry."
