Samsung Engineering wins $1 bn Malaysia plant deal

Samsung Engineering Co. has received a letter of intent from Malaysia’s petrochemical firm Sarawak Petchem Sdn Bhd to build a methanol plant in a $1.07 billion order, the South Korean company said on Nov. 30.

Once the order is confirmed, the Samsung Group unit will handle the entire process for the Sarawak methanol project from the early stages of design to engineering, procurement and construction (EPC).

The plant, scheduled for completion by 2023, will have a daily capacity of 5,000 tons of methanol production in Bintulu, Sarawak, eastern Malaysia.

Samsung is already participating in the project, responsible for the feasibility study and front-end engineering design (FEED) and having started the inital work phases last year.

The order value of $1.07 billion includes the project's two-stage initial subprojects awarded to Samsung in November 2019 and July 2020.

In October, Samsung clinched a $3.6 billion order to build a refinery facility in Mexico from a subsidiary of Mexico’s state-run oil company Pemex. It marked the single-largest project ever for the Korean construction company. 

Samsung already won the FEED order for the full EPC project in Mexico last year.

“We were able to receive this landmark project from Sarawak Petchem, by showing our exceptional engineering capabilities and commitment during the FEED stage,” Samsung Engineering’s President & CEO Choi Sungan said in a statement.

“Going forward, we will step up efforts to secure high-value orders by focusing on winning early-stage work orders for projects,” a Samsung official added.

Including the latest Malaysian order, Samsung has secured more than 17 trillion won worth of orders, including a bio plant in Korea and a battery copper foil plant in Hungary this year, which are equivalent to three years of workload.

Its shares were up 2.2% at 13,950 won on Tuesday afternoon, in line with a 1.7% gain on the broader Kospi index.

Write to Kang Kyung-Min at kkm1026@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.