Fletcher reaches for $1.2 billion in work

Auckland's Spaghetti Junction is among the $800 million in projects. Picture / Adrian Malloch

The construction division of listed Fletcher Building will have work worth $1.2 billion within a month if it wins a new Taranaki gas job and an Auckland motorway project.

Fletcher Infrastructure chief Mark Binns said jobs worth $800 million had already been won and most were under way or about to begin.

But two new jobs worth almost $400 million might be added within a few weeks if tenders were successful for the company.

Fletcher this week won the $140 million job to build the Wellington regional hospital for the Capital and Coast District Health Board.

Binns estimated that bids for a $176 million Manukau motorway project and the $200 million Kupe gas treatment plant would take the builder's work order to near $1.2 billion.

"But we haven't got those jobs yet," he said. However, the company had employed more technical staff from Germany and Britain to help with the workload.

Fletcher chief executive Ralph Waters has long promised a residential building slowdown would be balanced by a large infrastructure order book. "It's not all doom and gloom," said Binns.

Last year, the firm had a $600 million order book. Fletcher has tendered to build the Kupe gas treatment plant with joint-venture partner and British engineer Foster Wheeler, a global engineering and construction contractor and power equipment supplier.

The plant is part of a project to develop New Zealand's second-largest untapped gas field and will involve building an offshore platform, installing a 30km pipeline from the field to shore, and building the onshore production station and up to six well heads.

Fletcher has also tendered for the job to connect the Southern Motorway at Manukau City with State Highway 20 at the Puhinui interchange. The Transit NZ job is to begin in July and finish by December 2010 and involves building 4.5km of motorway in Manukau with split-level interchanges at Nesdale Ave and Lambie Drive.

Fletcher Construction general manager Peter Nevan said the Newtown hospital project in Wellington would have 800 workers on the site. Fletcher is the lead contractor on the job to start in February and finish by October 2008.


In progress

Northern Busway Project, North Shore, $191 million.

Wellington regional hospital in Newtown, $140 million.

Auckland University business school, $130 million.

Tauranga Hospital, $100 million.

Pohokura gas production station, $91 million.

Completion of Spaghetti Junction upgrade and Nelson St offramp, $69 million.