WIKA consortium wins $183m contract from Chevron

JAKARTA. A consortium led by publicly-listed PT Wijaya Karya (WIKA) has won a US$182.98 million engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract from the nation’s largest crude oil largest producer, PT Chevron Pacific Indonesia.

The consortium, comprising WIKA, PT Inwha Indonesia and PT Singgar Mulia, will work on the North Duri Development (NDD) area 13, which is part of Chevron’s Duri oil field in Sumatra.

The construction would cover mechanical, piping, electrical, instrumentation and other civil work, WIKA said in a statement sent to the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) on Monday.

“The project will be carried out within 30 months,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, Chevron, according to its website, said it was expecting that the expansion of NDD area 13 would begin by mid-2012 with startup scheduled for 2013.

WIKA holds the greatest stake in the consortium, $146 million, equal to 80 percent of the total NDD area 13 development project.

WIKA corporate secretary Natal Argawan said that the Chevron deal brought the total value of the firm’s contracts to Rp 7 trillion as of Monday. The company, along with its subsidiaries, booked Rp 5.6 trillion in contracts as of the end of May.

Natal said that the company expected to reap an additional Rp 1 trillion in contracts by the end of the month.

“If we get the [additional] contracts by the end of the second quarter, we will have met half of our total target of new contracts this year,” Natal told The Jakarta Post over the telephone on Monday.

WIKA is targeting to book Rp 16.5 trillion in total contracts by year end, up 35 percent from last year’s Rp 12.2 trillion.

According to Natal, the company would bid on various government, private sector and overseas projects.

“We are waiting for projects in Algeria, other Middle East countries and Southeast Asia. There are projects that we are seeking by ourselves, through consortiums and by cooperating with state-owned enterprises,” Natal said.

The company already has an overseas portfolio, serving as a subcontractor for the Cojaal consortium from Japan, which won the tender to build 400 kilometers of the 1,200 kilometer East-West Motorway project in Algeria.

The company, through subsidiary PT Wika Gedung, had been working on a US$10 billion project to develop a shopping mall in Libya, when political turmoil toppled Muammar Qaddafi last year.

“For Libya, we’ll wait and see,” Natal said.

WIKA reported consolidated revenue of Rp 1.75 trillion in the first quarter, up 13 percent from Rp 1.54 trillion in the same period last year, and net profits of Rp 95.08 billion, up 10 percent increase from Rp 85.93 billion.

Shares in WIKA closed at Rp 980 apiece on Monday, up 2.08 percent from Rp 960 a piece on last Friday.

The company’s market capitalization reached Rp 5.94 trillion on Monday. (Raras Cahyafitri/The Jakarta Post)