Anchor Resources, granite quarry lease holder to jointly bid for Malaysia's East Coast Rail Line projects

CATALIST-listed Anchor Resources is tying up with a granite quarry licence holder to tender together for Malaysian East Coast Rail Line projects, it said on Tuesday morning.

Anchor's wholly owned subsidiary GGTM Sdn Bhd and businessman Mohd Sukri Ismail inked an exclusive memorandum of understanding on Monday to tender for contracts to supply granite for rail tracks and three train stations, owing to the "strategic location" of the tracks and stations and the joint-venture partners' quarries.

The tie-up between GGTM and Mr Sukri aims to give their unincorporated joint venture exclusive usage of the quarry leases, together with the necessary approvals, said Anchor. The proposed consortium is also to obtain financing for the rail projects, and to plan and carry out those projects.

Mr Sukri holds two separate quarry leases in Terengganu, while GGTM has a concession for the extraction of granite aggregates and dimension blocks from two large granite quarries in the area.

The company said that the East Coast Rail Line is estimated to need about 250,000 sq m of granite tiles to build stations and 4.3 million tonnes of granite aggregates, ballasts and crusher run to build the track for Pengkalan Berangan Station, Kuala Terrengannu Station, and Duggun Station.

According to Anchor, the three stations are within 50km from GGTM's and Mr Sukri's quarries with the nearest being about 15km away.

Definitive joint-venture agreements will be inked and and an unincorporated joint venture set up for each project after the proposal is accepted and/or awarded by the relevant governing authority, said Anchor.

The formation of the consortium will be funded through internal resources and external borrowings and is not expected to have any material impact on the net tangible assets and earnings per share for the year to Dec 31, 2018.

The company added that none of its directors or controlling shareholders has any direct or indirect interest in the memorandum of understanding, except through their shareholding interests in the company.

It said that it would make further announcements on the deal "as and when there are any material developments on the same".

Anchor shares closed higher on Monday by 0.1 Singapore cent, or 4.76 per cent, at 2.2 Singapore cents.