SK Engineering and Construction Co. (SK E&C) said Tuesday it reached a tentative deal to build a natural gas liquefaction plant in the United States, marking the first time for a South Korean company to enter the business sector. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) reached with Australia's Magnolia LNG calls for building a 3.4-million-ton capacity liquefaction plant on the banks of Lake Charles in Louisiana. Liquefaction plants handle pretreatment, natural gas liquid recovery, a liquefaction process and storage for the liquefied natural gas (LNG).