Shares in Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) and engineering firms surged Monday, a day after the Abu Dhabi Government announced it had chosen a Korean consortium to build its fleet of nuclear power plants. The US$20 billion (Dh73.46bn) deal represented South Korea's first successful bid to export nuclear technology and was likely to open the door to further orders from the UAE and other Arab states, analysts said. KEPCO shares rose 5 per cent yesterday while shares of Doosan Heavy Industries, the firm in charge of procurement on the project, rose 15 per cent, the daily limit set by South Korea's stock exchange. Hyundai Engineering and Samsung C&T, which will each play a role in the plant's construction, rose 4.6 per cent and 3 per cent respectively. "Demand for nuclear power facilities is expected to rise steadily worldwide, and the deal signifies more South Korean consortia will be involved," Cho Yoon-ho, an analyst at Daishin Securities, told Reuters. As Korean shares rose, the French company Areva, which had offered a competing bid, fell 2.8 per cent. The average price of $5bn per reactor is higher than that for nuclear projects in South Korea, where the nuclear industry is well established and famous for its high level of efficiency, but lower than the costs of two French plants in Europe and a number of reactors proposed for the US. @Email:cstanton@thenational.ae