Asia Pacific, New Zealand and Australia

David Johnson

Strategic focus and client-centric solutions in an economically, culturally and geographically diverse region

Regional managing director

Mott MacDonald’s Rosemary Vong (centre) conducted geotechnical monitoring on the Singapore North-South corridor project

View from this region

143,000

homes could be powered by Kidston pumped storage project

major rail projects planned for Melbourne

For our Asia Pacific, New Zealand and Australia region, 2022 was a year of continued growth in key markets, initiation of activity in new markets, and a focus on maintaining a strong financial contribution to the group.

As a region we have continued to deliver our major transport and buildings projects and to grow our strategic initiatives in the defence and energy markets

The region covers Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Its geographic spread and economic and cultural diversity make it an exciting place for Mott MacDonald colleagues to work. This also means we're involved in everything from the transformative development of emerging economies to national decarbonisation to globally significant transport projects.

For this region, 2022 was a year of continued growth in key markets as well as opening up new market opportunities, with a focus on ensuring the financial contribution to the group remains strong and stable.

As a region we have continued to deliver our major transport and buildings projects and to grow our strategic initiatives in the defence and energy markets. By supporting our clients on large-scale and complex projects and helping them navigate the challenges of a global pandemic, we were able to have a strong and successful year.

Our strategic focus, along with collaboration across the region and globally, will continue to be the key to our success. Our people and the clients we work with will enable us to deliver fantastic projects that drive transformative change and meaningful outcomes in 2023 and beyond.

Hydropower resurgence

In New Zealand and Australia, we are involved in designing several huge pumped-storage hydropower facilities. At Kidston, in northern Queensland and once home to Australia’s largest open-cut gold mine, we have been helping to transform the site into a renewable energy hub – with a combination of solar, wind and pumped-storage hydropower. When fully operational, pumped-storage operation will generate 250MW – enough electricity to power 143,000 homes for up to eight hours.

The Central West pumped-hydro project in New South Wales, meanwhile, is a nominal 325MW facility with approximately eight hours of storage capacity, while the Baroota pumped-hydro project in South Australia will have a 250MW storage capacity. We have also been design lead on the 125MW Lake Onslow pumped-hydro project on New Zealand’s South Island.

Our investment in digital technology is enabling better collaboration, across regions and globally.

Major rail projects

We continue to demonstrate our leading capability and expertise in transport infrastructure, providing engineering solutions to deliver the multibillion-dollar, decade-long programme as a trusted partner on the expansion of Sydney Metro – Australia’s largest public transport project. In addition, we partnered for the planning and delivery of three other major rail projects in Melbourne in 2022: Metro Tunnel, Regional Rail Revival and Melbourne Airport Rail.

Harnessing global expertise

Meanwhile, our investment in digital technology is enabling better collaboration, across regions and globally. Our project team working on the expansion of Auckland Airport is formed of colleagues based in New Zealand supported by those from Australia, Hong Kong, the USA and our global design service. Our UK and Spanish aviation teams provide support in peer review for certain aspects of the aviation planning, and the Singapore team involved in Changi Airport has shared its knowledge of building services. Having such a multicultural team has been part of its success. Digital technology enables us to combine our local and global expertise effectively and efficiently, for seamless collaboration with our consortium partners, contractors and the client.

Being such a diverse region means that priorities have differed from country to country. In Indonesia, for example, we focused on improving infrastructure in growing cities and building climate resilience, both of which are key to the country’s future prosperity. This was through our work on the transformative international Global Future Cities Programme as delivery partner.

Our teams continued to work with Bandung’s city government and the Bandung City Transport Agency to better integrate their public transport network, reduce traffic congestion and, in turn, make the city’s streets safer, cleaner and more equitable.

In Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, we continued to work with our partners on the transformation of a former red-light district, working to design a vibrant and safe urban environment and help build the skillsets of local community members, as well as on a separate project to build seismic resilience by identifying areas of weakness and developing strategies that will enable city stakeholders to respond rapidly to potential disasters. These have both been incredible projects to see evolve, and for our teams to witness the direct impact has made them proud.

In Korea and Japan, two highly industrialised countries that lack their own hydrocarbon resources, we have been exploring the opportunities for reducing dependence on fossil fuels. Both nations have also set ambitious carbon reduction targets. In Korea, our hydrogen specialists have been supporting clients to deliver projects consistent with the country’s Hydrogen Economy Roadmap and providing valuable lessons learned from working on hydrogen projects worldwide.

To support our strategic growth in renewables and our efforts towards energy transition, we continue to upskill our colleagues across the wider region through our Renewables Academy in Thailand. The academy focuses not only on the development of wind and solar power but also on energy storage – something that we understand will be a core element of the future global energy system.

City growth and climate resilience

Reducing fossil fuel dependence

Our long and extensive track record in rail and metros – including tunnelling under some of the world’s largest cities – together with investment in the skills and technologies to support ever-efficient design, delivery and operation, enable us to win work on the biggest transport projects across the region. This has also helped us demonstrate to clients in other sectors our leading expertise and significant experience in delivering major and complex projects – the defence sector included.

We have strengthened our defence and security offering in Australia in 2022. This progression and our added capacity have seen us appointed to major defence panels and projects in the last 12 months. With the emerging opportunities presented by the trilateral security pact between Australia, the UK and the USA (AUKUS), we will continue to grow our presence in this sector.

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