OKP Holdings secures S$22mln PUB contract

The deal for road-raising works along Orchard Road is expected to take 7 months to complete.

Mainboard-listed OKP Holdings Limited (OKP), a leading infrastructure and civil engineering firm, has landed a S$22 million contract from the PUB, the national water agency, for road-raising works in the Orchard Road area.

The contract, secured by OKP’s wholly-owned subsidiary Or Kim Peow Contractors (Private) Limited, is OKP’s seventh this year. The entire project is expected to take about seven months to complete and work will start on 1 November 2010, according to an OKP report.

The stretch of Orchard Road affected is from Orange Grove Road to Cairnhill Road, including adjoining and nearby roads, road exits, entrances and accesses to buildings, which will be raised to levels as specified by the PUB.

The scope of work includes regrading and retiling pedestrian malls at crossings affected by the road-raising works, relocating and reinstating affected bus stops and taxi stand(s), installation of road kerbs, reconstruction of existing drains and/or construction of new ones. As the affected area is along the main shopping and tourist belt, the contract also calls for co-ordination with property owners/managements to keep disruptions to a minimum.

Group Managing Director, Mr Or Toh Wat, said the latest win is a testament to OKP’s strong track record of reliability and a high quality of service delivery. “This contract comes with a unique set of challenges because we will beworking in a high-traffic area, both in terms of vehicular traffic and human traffic. We are keenly aware of this and will certainly do our utmost to ensure minimal disruption to all road users,” added Mr Or.

“My team is quite excited about this project. Although we are generally familiar with the technical specifications of the project, some aspects of these works will be interesting. For example, being in Singapore’s main shopping and tourist belt, we shall have to liaise closely with hotels and shopping malls to ensure that our work will not disrupt businesses unnecessarily,” Mr Or said.

OKP is a leading home-grown infrastructure and civil engineering company specialising in the construction of urban and arterial roads, expressways,vehicular bridges, flyovers, airport infrastructure and Oil & Gas-related infrastructure for petrochemical plants and oil storage terminals. The Company also undertakes maintenance works for roads and roads-related facilities as well as building construction-related works. It recently obtained shareholders’approval to expand its core business to include Property Development.

Project updates
OKP has a solid track record in public sector works, having been in the business for more than four decades. Just last week on 18 October 2010, it announced a S$14.5 million contract win to undertake road construction, road widening and sewerage works at Clean Tech Park,Singapore’s first eco-business park situated next to the Nanyang Technological University. With this current win, the total value of public sector projects secured by OKP since the start of this year would amount to about $82 million.

Other projects it is currently working on are: a S$5.97 million contract from the PUB to undertake desilting works for the 2-km Bukit Timah Phase II Diversion Canal, a S$5.2million Jurong Town Corporation project involving construction and maintenance works at Tuas South Avenue 12 and Tuas South Avenue 14, and two contracts totalling S$34.3 million from the Land Transport Authority for ad hoc repairs and upgrading of roads, road-related facilities and road structures in the Central Sector and in the North-West Sector.

Apart from public sector contracts, the Group had also recently secured a S$1.1 million contract for land reclamation works on Jurong Island, making further headway into the Oil & Gas sector.

The Group achieved record net profits of S$12.3 million and revenue of S$110.3 million for its nine months ended 30 September 2010. Its order book as at 25 October 2010 is a healthy S$327.6 million based on secure civil engineering and construction contracts, with some projects stretching right up to 2013.