STX Heavy inks deal on power plants in Iraq

SEOUL, May 19 (Yonhap) -- STX Heavy Industries Co., a unit of South Korea's STX Group, said Thursday that it has signed a deal valued at around 3 trillion won (US$2.76 billion) to build power plants in Iraq. Under the deal with Iraq's electricity ministry, STX Heavy will build 25 power plants across the Middle Eastern nation that will generate a combined 2,500 megawatts. The diesel-fired plants will be built by June 2012, the company said. The units are half of the 50 new 100-megawatt power plants the Iraqi government plans to build at a cost of $6.25 billion. STX Heavy won a 150 billion won order from an Iraqi oil firm to build a power plant in August last year. Shares of STX Corp., the group's de-facto holding company, were trading at 23,150 won on the Seoul bourse as of 9:50 a.m., down 1.28 percent.