The Kumpulan Nishimatsu-Hock Seng Lee (KNH) consortium is in the final stages of negotiations with Sarawak state authorities on the Kuching centralised wastewater management system project package 2 contract.
As the turnkey contractor, the KNH consortium is currently at the tail-end of completing the RM530mil package 1, which got off the ground in October 2008. As at March 31, 2014, about 92.6 per cent of package 1 had been completed, according to the Sarawak Sewerage Services Department.
Hock Seng Lee Bhd (HSL) corporate affairs director Sonja Gan hopes that ongoing negotiations between the KNH consortium and state authorities can be wrapped up soon, with an outcome on phase 2’s implemention in the next few months.
“We believe the consortium, which has mastered the technical expertise in implementing package 1, is in a good position to secure the package 2 contract. We are very keen to undertake package 2 for project continuity and cost-effectiveness while maximising the utilisation of assets,” she told StarBiz.
According to Gan, the consortium has invested some RM30mil, including in a laser-guided tunnel boring machine fleet for trenchless pipe-laying to carry out the package 1 project.
She said the consortium has proven to have the technical capabilities to handle the project’s infrastructure work, including operating the tunnel boring machine fleet.
HSL is playing the lead role in implementing the three-phase project originally estimated to cost RM2.5bil by the state authorities.
Package 1 is made up of three key components – a wastewater treatment plant, a sewer network (overall length of 64.5km consisting of trunk, secondary and tertiary sewer) and property connections.
The centralised sewerage system project based on the Singapore model is to collect grey and black water and pipe it underground to the treatment plant where it is processed into clean water before being discharged back to the environment.
Kuching produces about 175 million litres of wastewater (80 per cent grey and 20 per cent black) everyday, enough to fill 70 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Before the treatment plant was operational last year, the wastewater had been discharged into the drains and waterways, causing heavy pollution to the Sarawak River where the city draws its raw water for treatment as drinking water.
The total number of properties to be connected under package I is around 2,830.
Gan said connections to major hotels in the city’s golden triangle, commercial buildings in the central business district, open air market area and Sarawak General Hospital had mostly been completed. The number of large properties and shophouses connected totalled 2,050.
“All in all, some 40,000 population equivalent (PE) has been connected to date. Around 100 individual properties have been connected and another 100 are in progress (out of the total 782).
“Package 1 is running on time for completion in early 2015,” she added.
Gan said the treatment plant could cater to 67,000 PE under package 1 and would increase to its designed capacity of 100,000 PE if package 2 goes ahead.
If need be, the plant can be expanded up to a final capacity of 400,000 PE.
Besides the package 2 contract, Gan said the HSL group had tendered for several infrastructure, flood mitigation and water-related projects, mass reclamation works, power plants as well as affordable housing projects.
She said that based on records, the group had a very high success rate in bids for infrastructure projects with marine engineering and mass reclamation components, as these were its specialised expertise.
Last week, HSL was awarded a RM73.7mil contract by Samado Sdn Bhd for the provision of infrastructure works in the Samalaju Industrial Park in Bintulu. This brought to total RM129mil worth of new contracts the group had secured this year.
The group won 19 new contracts with a combined value of RM628mil, and completed 17 projects last year. Currently, it has over 30 projects in hand, about one-third of them within the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy, valued at over RM2bil.
Gan said HSL was confident of replenishing its order book with more new contracts in the next seven months.
