Conglomerate Sime Darby is tipped to win a RM17 billion (US$4.5 billion) contract to lay an undersea cable linking peninsular Malaysia with the controversial Bakun hydro-electric plant on Borneo island, a report said Monday.

The New Straits Times quoted unnamed sources as saying the government-linked conglomerate could get the green light for the massive job as early as this week.

Sime Darby has been working with Malaysian utility giant Tenaga Nasional on studying the feasibility of transporting power from Bakun in Sarawak state to peninsular Malaysia via the 700 kilometre (434 mile) cable.

In May, Tenaga urged the government to make a decision on the cable project this year, to allow the company to plan for the future.

Fiercely criticised

The billion-dollar, 2,400 megawatt Bakun dam project is due for completion by the end of 2009, but has been dogged with delays and setbacks since its approval in 1993.

It was originally due to be completed by August 2007 but was shelved following the 1997 Asian financial crisis which slayed regional economies.

The dam, which involves flooding an area the size of Singapore, has attracted fierce criticism because of its harmful impact on the environment. Some 10,000 residents have had to evacuate the project site.

Environmentalists have also said the undersea cable would be unsafe because it lies across an earthquake-prone region.