The company said it would build the complexes, which will be capable of generating a total 2,500 megawatts, by June 2012 under the agreement signed with Iraq's electricity ministry in Baghdad.

The deal is part of Iraq's project to build 50 new power plants at a cost of $6.25 billion, it said.

STX Heavy said Iraq has also expressed its desire to sign two other deals in a month for construction of a steel plant and a 500 megawatt gas-powered plant.

"The contract signed today will help our company win more orders in Iraq and other Middle East countries," STX Heavy president Lee Chan-Woo said in a statement.

In September last year the company won a $200 million contract to build a steel plant for Saudi Arabia's South Steel Company, its first deal in the Middle Eastern country.