Langat 2 plant to be completed by 2017

PETALING JAYA: The Langat 2 water treatment plant project, initially scheduled for construction in 2010, will finally take off with the award of the RM993.88 million contract to a consortium by Pengurusan Aset Air Bhd (PAAB).
A consortium of Salcon Bhd, MMC Corp and Ahmad Zaki Resources Bhd (AZRB) was awarded the project by PAAB, a wholly-owned company of Minister of Finance Inc in a letter dated April 16, 2014.
Salcon's wholly owned subsidiary, Salcon Engineering Bhd is the lead partner in the joint venture with a 36% stake, while MMC and AZRB's unit, Ahmad Zaki Sdn Bhd, will hold 34% and 30% stakes respectively.
In a statement yesterday, Salcon said the contract is a major water supply project for the state of Selangor and the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and is expected to provide the water supply needs of the state, up to year 2025.
The project, it said, entails the development of the Langat 2 water treatment plant in two sections with nominal treated water production of 565 million litres per day (MLD) for each section.
"The Langat 2 water treatment plant is targeted to be completed within a period of 36 months, that is on Apr 30, 2017, and includes an operation and maintenance period of three months upon completion," it said.
Raw water will be channeled from Sungai Semantan in Pahang through a transfer tunnel to Selangor under the Pahang-Selangor Raw Water Transfer Project, presently undertaken by the Federal Government.
"This is a landmark win for Salcon as the Langat 2 Water Treatment Plant is the largest single water contract in the history of the Malaysian water industry. Our extensive experience and proven track record coupled with our joint ventures partners' management capability and engineering expertise, will help in delivering the best solutions for this project," Salcon's executive director Datuk Eddy Leong Kok Wah said.
He said the Langat 2 water treatment plant project will boost Salcon's order book to RM930 million and is expected to contribute positively to the earnings of the group.
Salcon, a water and wastewater engineering company, said it and its joint venture partners, won the Langat 2 Water Treatment Plant project through an open tender called by PAAB.
Currently the group has tendered for RM2.2 billion worth of water and wastewater projects, both locally and overseas in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.
The Langat 2 contract award follows the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the Federal and state government on Feb 26, 2013 to restructure the state's water industry.
The Selangor state government agreed to the development of Langat 2 water treatment plant and its distribution system in return for the federal government's help to acquire four water concessionaires, with a RM9.65 billion sum as compensation to be paid to the four companies.
While the Langat 2 project is now under way, negotiations between Selangor and the concessionaires are far from over.
The federal government may have agreed to invoke Section 114 of the Water Services Industry Act (WSIA) to hasten the process of taking over the four water concessionaires in Selangor, but the parties have yet to agree to a price for the acquisitions.