The government reported the Encinal combined-cycle gas turbine power generation project in Texas, U.S., to the National Assembly as the “No. 1 U.S. Investment Project.” The investment size is $22.3 billion (approximately KRW 29.92 trillion), a super-large energy infrastructure construction project that builds power generation facilities with a total capacity of 6.3 gigawatts (GW) to supply power to nearby artificial intelligence data centers (AIDC).

According to the ruling side on the 7th, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy held a party-government consultation with the Democratic Party of Korea and reported these details as part of the advance reporting procedure to the competent standing committee of the National Assembly under the Special Act on Investment in the United States. Attendees at the meeting included Democratic Party lawmakers belonging to the National Assembly's Strategy and Finance Committee and the Trade, Industry, Energy, Small and Medium Enterprises, and Startups Committee, as well as working-level officials including Park Jung-sung, deputy minister for trade negotiations at the ministry. Representative Oh Ki-hyung, the ruling party's ranking member of the National Assembly's Strategy and Finance Committee, met with reporters at the National Assembly and withheld comment, saying, “As it is a diplomatic issue, I have nothing in particular to tell you,” and Representative Jang Chul-min, the ruling party's ranking member of the Trade, Industry, Energy, Small and Medium Enterprises, and Startups Committee, also only said, “We received a report on the negotiation procedure in accordance with the Special Act.”

The project in question is known to be the result of final coordination conducted by Kim Jung-kwan, minister of trade, industry and energy, when he visited the United States last week and met with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and others. The two countries initially discussed a project size of $19.8 billion, but expanded the scale by accepting the U.S. side's request for an increase at the last minute. Minister Kim departed for France directly from the U.S. to join President Lee Jae-myung's state visit schedule to France, and was not present at the report on this day.

Prior to the party-government consultation on this day, the government held the Korea-U.S. Strategic Investment Steering Committee and finally resolved to proceed with this project. The No. 1 U.S. Investment Project will be finally decided by U.S. President Donald Trump after passing through the Korea-U.S. Consultative Committee and the U.S. Investment Committee, which are composed of figures designated by the governments of both countries. If it fails to satisfy the commercial reasonableness criteria set by the enforcement decree of the Special Act (U.S. 20-year Treasury bond yield + spread), it must also receive the consent of the South Korean National Assembly prior to that. Once President Trump makes the final decision, the Korea-U.S. Strategic Investment Corporation will execute the investment utilizing the Korea-U.S. Strategic Investment Fund. It is a method of executing payments as needed using the $22.3 billion.

Meanwhile, it is reported that the two countries are also discussing plans to build multiple large-scale nuclear power plants in the United States. The ministry plans to flesh out the U.S. investment projects within this month and make an official announcement.