"We do not foresee any problem in completing the job on time and ahead of schedule," the company's director, Mr Ooi Sen Eng, told Business Times recently. Work on the six berths totalling 2,160m in length is scheduled to be completed by February 28 next year, he said.

Ooi described construction of the RM300 million PTP berth project which the company undertook on a turnkey basis as massive, with a very tight schedule with a given period of 105 weeks.

"The physical construction time is 93 weeks and that means we have to proceed building the berths about 23m per week," he pointed to the fact the job is completely undertaken by the local contractor.

The first two berths of 360m each were completed in May and early June this year and will be handed over to PTP this Friday. Transport Minsiter Datuk Seri Dr Ling Liong Sik will officiate at the handing-over ceremony.

Work on berth 3 will be completed at the end of this month while work on berths 4, 5 and 6 is in full swing.

Though Muhibbah Engineering faced some teething problems in the initial stage of the construction because of the new design concept, Ooi said with the team of experienced and dedicated engineers and supervisors, they managed to overcome the problem and complete it on time by working through extended hours.

"These professionals know the waters around the country very well," he said.

Apart from PTP, the company has undertaken several port projects such as Westport, Pasir Gudang, North Butterworth Port extension project in Penang, Bintulu Port, Singapore and Kuala Baram Port in Miri.

He said PTP is designed as deep-water port with berthing alongside up to 18.32m ACD (Admiral Chart Datum) compared with other ports such as Pasir Gudang 13.5m ACD an Westport at Port Klang 14.5m ACD.

"Because of this depth, a temporary sand bund against a combi wall has to be built before proceeding with pile installation and decking."

"As the sheet pile combi wall is below water level (minus 10 metres ACD), a frame for installing steel pipe piles and guided dolly is required to put in place the sheet pile to proper level," he explained.

The other problem which the company faced during construction was the high rock strata at berth 1.

"Where the steel pipe piles could not be driven to the required depth, we had to pre-drill a hole into the rock by the reverse circulation drill method and drive the piles into the required level," he said.

"We managed to achieve this with accuracy and precision by installing the combi pile wall," Ooi said.

He said the company will consider adopting this design for other turnkey projects if the requirements are the same.

Currently at the peak of the construction work, the company employs more than 600 workers - including nine engineers, 24 supervisors and technicians, six surveyors, 16 foremen and a team of piling crew, barbenders, concretors, welders, operators and carpenters.

The machineries employed in the construction work include three 50m piling barges, five floating cranes ranging from 150 tonnes to 350 tonnes, three crawler cranes on land, four ocean going tugs (1,500 horse power and above), eight harbour tugs (500-700 horse power), 26 dumb barges (with capacity of 1,000-2,000 tones), one dredger of 2,000 cu. m. per day capacity and eight land-based cranes of 25 tonnes rough terrain and 80 tonnes crawlers.

Construction materials which will be used for the whole project include 52,000 tonnes of cement, 120,000 tonnes of sand, 100,000 tonnes of aggregates, 20,000 tonnes of reinforced bars and various sizes and types of piles totalling 105km long placed from end-to-end.

Ooi said the PTP project site, located on the south-western tip of Johor, near Gelang Patah, was well chosen as it has a natural shelter and is not affected by monsoon waves.

"It will be easy for ships to berth and moor," he said.

The tidal range of 2m to 3m at the site also helped in the construction work as opposed to Port Klang where it could range up to 5m.

Ooi said the projects which the company is working on are the Kertih Port extension, Bintulu Port (950m length of bulk cargo berth) and the Dinding River Bridge for marine piling substructure of three bridges.