- According to the New Straits Times, MRT Corp has received the final approval from the Land Public Transport Commission (SPAD) to carry out the construction of the Sg. Buloh-Serdang-Putrajaya MRT Line (MRT Line 2). The federal endorsement by SPAD entails among others, the final alignment as well as station locations. It comes under Section 84 of the Land Public Transport Act 2010.

- This comes after the completion of a three-month public inspection that was carried out between 15 May and 17 August. During this period, a public engagement exercise was also carried out. Roughly 40k people visited the public inspection booths. More than 10,500 provided their feedback where 90% expressed support for the MRT Line 2.

- Altogether, the MRT Line 2 will have 37 stations. Out of this total, 25 will be elevated, 11 will be underground, and one which is ‘half-sunken’ (built on ground below the current level).

- The overall length of this new route will however, remain unchanged at 52km (elevated: 39km; underground: 13km). The underground section will run from Jln Ipoh until Kuchai Lama.

- There were some minor tweaks in the final alignment, particularly along two locations: i.e. Kuchai Lama and Sg Besi. The changes were to minimise the impact of land acquisition and to ensure optimisation of the remaining land post the MRT construction works.

- An additional elevated station is to be constructed near Technology Park Malaysia (TPM) located between S25 (Sg.Besi) and S26 (Serdang Raya North). The elevated station is to cater for future development projects within the Sg.Besi area in addition to the existing catchment surrounding the TPM area.

- In terms of timeline, Phase 1 (Sg.Buloh-Kg. Batu) is expected to be operational by 2021. This will be followed by the remaining section (Kg. Batu- Putrajaya Sentral) under Phase 2 (July 2022).

- When it is completed by 2022, the MRT Line 2 is expected to have a ridership of more than 500k passengers daily. It is set to be a frontline project for the upcoming 11th Malaysia Plan (11MP).

- We expect the MMC-Gamuda JV to be a key beneficiary of this new line. Having been endorsed as its Project Delivery Partner (PDP), the JV is also set to be a key frontrunner for the tunnelling package. Tenders for the major civil works packages (including tunnelling works) could be called from this month with the major awards set to be dished out from mid- 2016.

- While competition for the other job flows will likely remain intense, we envisage specialist contractors such as Econpile and Kimlun Corp to be other strong contenders by virtue of their niche expertise in piling and segmental box girdle (SGB)/tunnel lining works.

Source: AmeSecurities Research - 23 Oct 2015