SEOUL, KOREA - Daewoo Engineering & Construction said on November 3 that it won a river basin maintenance order worth US$192 million in Algeria. Commissioned by DRHEE, the water authority in the Constantine Province, the project calls for cleaning up the 11.72-kilometer river banks and low water channels along the Rhumel River and Oued Bou Merzoug about 320 kilometers east of its capital Algiers while building river bank parks, walking trails, and bike paths.

 

Daewoo landed the deal in cooperation with local partner ONIDri in a consortium. Daewoo's stake in the consortium is 70 percent, or $135 million. The total length of the project is 20 months.

 

This is the second time for Daewoo E&C to win a river maintenance project in the North African nation. As part of an effort to win environmental projects overseas, the company clinched a deal to clean up the Oued El Harrach river basin in Algiers in 2012, jointly with the Korean Ministry of Environment and the Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute. The project is currently under way.

 

A Daewoo E&C official said, "Thanks to the trust gained from the El Harrach project, we could win the new project through a free contract without going through a public bidding. The support given by the Korean government including a memorandum signed in March this year with the Algerian Ministry of Land-use Planning and Environment was the decisive factor for us to win the project."

 

Daewoo E&C moved into the Algerian construction market in 1988 even before the Korean government opened the diplomatic relationship with the country. It has since won 12 projects worth $4,354 million in total.

 

Article provided by The Korea Economic Daily