GCC Interconnection Project

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Built hope in the land of desertThe eastern part of Saudi Arabia bordering with Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Oman, and Yemen is located in the Gulf coast. There were people offering the light of life to this desert in the name of Hyundai E&C. They are the ones made the seemingly impossible Saudi’s 400kV transmission line construction site in GCC possible with the passion more enthusiastic than the heat of the desert sun.Transmission line crossing the GCC regionThe site of ‘Saudi’s GCC 400kV Transmission Line’ is a section located in Saudi Arabia among transmission lines that connect countries in the GCC region. Based on this section, Hyundai E&C combined·operated two sites of SEC 300kV (ST388, ST389). The combined site was linked from Ghunan, located east of Saudi, to Khurais, Qurayyah, Fadhili, and Salwa, the border of Qatar. The entire railway line was equivalent to 800 km, a round-trip distance from Seoul to Busan.The combined site symbolized the construction of connecting the GCC countries, so from the tendering stage, the competition was fierce among global countries. If the construction was completed, the project could contribute to resolving power shortage in the GCC countries and the construction company could take the initiative in the transmission line market of the Saudi and other Middle East countries. Hyundai E&C successfully won the contract in 2005 by being recognized for its technical prowess shown in the past successful projects in Saudi. The spirit of Hyundai E&C overcame strong dust stormThe eastern part of Saudi records 50℃ in summer, but the temperature drops to around 2~3℃ during winter. Moreover, the strong dust storm has an enormous impact on the site where high-altitude work needs to be conducted more than 60m above ground.However, all our employees kept the promise with the ordering organization on the honor of Hyundai E&C. Accordingly, the ST388 construction was recorded as the only project completed on the agreed schedule among all other projects ordered by SEC-EOA in the midst of bad weather including dust storm. It usually takes more than a year to issue the Final Acceptance Certificate (FAC) after the Provisional Acceptance Certificate (PAC) is issued. However, the SEC-EOA unprecedentedly issued the FAC before completely sending an electric current. Hyundai E&C also made a great impression to the SEC-EOA by completing a certain section of the GT site earlier than the pre-defined schedule. Accordingly, the SEC-EOA showed the great reliability by paying the retention money for PAC to Hyundai E&C in early stages as an expression of gratitude.The technical competence of Hyundai E&C out-glittered in the combined site. The SEC-EOA usually outsourced a steel tower design and basic design to a third-party design company according to its internal regulation. However, it gave an exception only to Hyundai E&C. In other words, our outstanding capability in basic design was recognized by the SEC-EOA since we clearly solved a big challenge even difficult to a technology company. Such efforts allowed us not only to save the budget, but also to become a representative success case in the overseas construction project.

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