KKB Engineering on production expansion drive
KUCHING: KKB Engineering Bhd will embark on an expansion project to raise the production capacity of its steel fabrication and hop-dip galvanising operations here.
The company recently acquired a five-acre land adjacent to its existing factory building and headquarters at Bintawa Industrial Estate for Rm11mil.
Erected on the land is a building of a former company involved in the printing business.
Group executive director Kho Pok Tong said the expansion project, which is expected to get off the ground in the second half of 2021, will increase the steel fabrication and hot-dip galvanising production capacity by up to another 2,500 tonnes per annum.
The group existing plant’s capacity is around 4,000 tonnes per annum.
Upon completion of the new facilities, this will bring the company’s steel fabrication and hot-dip galvanising capacity in Bintawa up to 6,500 tonnes per annum.
Kho told Starbiz that “the project, which will involve reconstruction work, is targeted for completion in middle of 2022 with a capital expenditure of about Rm4mil”.
KKB’S steel-fabrication activities range from the fabrication and installation of steel structures, piping spool, steel storage tanks and all other special fabricated items for industries, factories and plants, including major fabrication-offshore facilities for the oil and gas (O&G) sector.
The company is a major manufacturer of steel water pipes in Sarawak and Sabah, where it owns a steel fabrication plant in Kota Kinabalu.
KKB also manufactures liquified petroleum (LP) gas cylinders for the O&G companies.
The group’s hot-dip galvanising division provides additional services to its steel fabrication activities that require any steel products to be galvanised.
Products that can be galvanised include telecommunications towers, street-lighting columns, high and low-tension poles, bolts and nuts, cable ladder, angles bars, pipes, gate and fencing, platforms and all other steel-fabricated items.
According to Kho, the group has been supplying steel poles to Sarawak Energy Bhd, which generates and distributes electricity statewide.
“We will focus on serving energy-related activities and we hope to support Sarawak’s telecommunications initiatives, such as telco towers and steel structures,” he added.
Kho said the group recently completed a major expansion on its new steel fabrication yard at Jalan Bako near here.
This is to gear itself up in anticipation of more fabrication jobs for offshore structures in the O&G industry to be undertaken by its subsidiary, Oceanmight Sdn Bhd, he noted.
KKB has so far invested some Rm145.8mil for the yard’s expansion, including a mega workshop with building height of 50 metres to accommodate multiple projects up to 21,000 tonnes per annum of works to be carried out simultaneously.
The new addition to the yard is an overhead heavy lifting equipment and state-ofthe-art machinery and automation.
The yard currently has five covered workshops and load-out jetty fronting the Sarawak River.
Since obtaining its fabrication licence from Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) in 2013, Oceanmight has secured 11 fabrication contracts for offshore structures and completed and delivered nine of them, with works on the remaining two ongoing.
According to Kho, Oceanmight is currently waiting for the outcome of its bids worth Rm360mil of fabrication jobs, which is expected to be made known the latest by the third quarter of 2021.