Work on Downtown Line 2 stations may resume in 3 to 6 months

SINGAPORE — Work on three stations along Downtown Line 2, which ground to a halt last week after the main contractor filed for insolvency, is expected to resume in three to six months, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said yesterday.

Responding to media queries, the authority said in an emailed reply that its immediate priority was to ensure the safety and security of the sites and that measures had been put in place to safeguard the sites and equipment.

It added that there are legal and contractual matters that have to be resolved with the insolvency administrator before newly appointed completion contractors can start work. This is expected to take about three to six months.

The main contractor, Alpine Bau, filed for insolvency last Wednesday. It had been contracted to work on the King Albert Park, Sixth Avenue and Tan Kah Kee stations. The contracts, the only ones awarded to the company, are worth a total of approximately S$670.74 million.

The LTA spokesperson said that just days before Alpine Bau filed for insolvency, it had given assurances and underlined its commitments to completing the station and tunnelling work. There had also been no sign of any slowdown in work at any of the sites.

“The contracts were awarded in September 2009, when it was assessed — based on the available financial information — that Alpine Bau had the financial resources to undertake the contracts,” the spokesperson said. “The events that resulted in its current financial difficulties could not have been anticipated then.”

The authority stressed that it “will work closely with the relevant parties to ascertain and minimise the impact” on the completion timeline for the Downtown Line 2. The line will link Marina Bay to Bukit Timah and is expected to be ready by 2015.

When TODAY visited the three sites yesterday, they were locked and barred, with construction workers heading out. They said work had stopped since last week and were unaware of when it would resume.

Alpine Bau is Austria’s second-largest construction firm. In an update on its website, it had said it had tried to reach an out-of-court settlement for restructuring of the company after it suffered financial woes. But “contrary to expectations, and despite significant support by financing partners and intensive efforts by the shareholder, (it has) not been successful”.