KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 15): Marine construction services provider Benalec Holdings Bhd rose as much as 6.3%, after news of the controversial Forest City project getting the approval for its detailed environmental impact assessment (DEIA) from the Department of Environment (DoE).

While Benalec is not involved in the Forest City project, it has a reclamation project near Forest City, covering 1,410ha at Tanjung Piai, for the purpose of an industrial oil and gas hub. The approval granted on Forest City sparked optimism on Benalec’s reclamation project at Tanjung Piai.

At 4.40pm, shares of Benalec (fundamental score: 1.65; valuation score: 1.80) rose 2.5 sen or 3.9% to 66.5 sen, with some 6.1 million shares done. The counter earlier gained as much as 4 sen or 6.3%, to reach a high of 68 sen.

In a statement yesterday, Country Garden Pacific View Sdn Bhd (CGP), the master developer of the Forest City project in Johor, said the DoE has accepted its proposed measures to mitigate environmental impacts through “integrated and workable solutions”. CGP’s shareholders include China’s Country Garden Holdings Co Ltd, the sultan of Johor and the Johor state government.

Recently on Jan 7, Benalec said it had yet to receive the go-ahead from the DoE, to start reclamation works for its Tanjung Piai Integrated Petroleum & Petrochemical Hub and Maritime Industrial Park project in Johor. It had then clarified to Bursa Malaysia that it had submitted the DEIA report to the DoE in late Oct 2014, and was still awaiting official approval of the report.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company’s profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)