Hyundai Engineering is accelerating efforts to gain a bigger foothold in the European plant construction market, having been chosen as a preferred bidder for a 2 billion-euro ($2.4 billion) deal in Poland.

The South Korean firm has teamed up with Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas for the project, lead by Poland’s PKN Orlen, one of the biggest oil refiners and petroleum retailers in Central and Eastern Europe, to build a petrochemical complex in Plock, central Mazovia, about 120 kilometers away from Warsaw, the capital of Poland.

If the consortium wins the bid, the two companies will be in charge of designing and building the plant, set to produce some 740,000 tons of ethylene, a key ingredient used to make plastic and rubber.

Hyundai Engineering said it has a 55 percent stake in the consortium, while the rest is held by Tecnicas Reunidas.

A signing ceremony was held on May 24, attended by officials from Hyundai Engineering, Tecnicas Reunidas, PKN Orlen and Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister Jacek Sasin.

If clinched, the project will be another major undertaking by Hyundai Engineering in the eastern European country after it clinched a $1.1 billion engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to build polypropylene production facilities, ports and auxiliary infrastructure in the Polish county of Police.

By Kang Jae-eun (kang.jaeeun@heraldcorp.com)