Dubai construction firm Al Habtoor Leighton, an affiliate of Australia's Leighton Holdings, is eyeing two contract wins in Saudi Arabia worth up to 10 billion riyals each ($2.67 billion) by year end, its top executive said.

'We would think that in the next 6 to 12 months there will be a couple of substantial orders,' Laurie Voyer, the firm's chief executive and managing director told the Reuters Real Estate and Infrastructure Summit in Dubai on Wednesday.     

'I'd be surprised if its not in the scale of 5-10 billion riyals.'     

Voyer said Al Habtoor Leighton is not looking to announce writedowns for its projects in the United Arab Emirates and that it would be unlikely to need further cash from its parent firm.

Voyer said in April it may need a cash injection from its parent firm if its ongoing legacy projects are not paid on time.

Construction firms have been rapidly expanding operations outside the United Arab Emirates, where house prices in Dubai, the emirate hardest hit by the financial crisis, plunged some 60 percent from their peaks in 2008, and billions of dollars worth of projects were put on hold or cancelled. -Reuters