Shares of Leighton Holdings increased by as much as 4.3% today, after the corporation proclaimed that it had saved $1.5 billion worth of further work.

But there are doubts near the region as to whether the construction and mining giant can keep up the momentum. The group made an announcement that Leighton Asia had successfully saved a $1.1bn mining development agreement in Indonesia, and that its auxiliary Thiess Services had been able to win $405 million worth of remediation work from BHP Billiton.

The Thiess work is in relationship with the mining giant's Hunter River Remediation Project. This comprises of cleaning up areas of the Hunter River bed in the Hunter Valley, NSW, subsequent to years of steelmaking at BHP's Newcastle Steelworks at Mayfield, NSW.

By mid-afternoon, Leighton shares were up by 2.48%, or 91 cents, to $33.22, with the broader market down by more than 0.5%.

Graeme Carson, Senior Industrial Analyst at Patersons Securities, said Leighton had to uphold $1.5bn worth of new work each month, so that, it can maintain its order book at present levels, given that the corporation wound up about $1.6bn worth of projects, every month.

Shares in real saw an increase because of the new contract news.