Bien Hoa-Vung Tau Expressway faces delays

The Bien Hoa-Vung Tau Expressway project, which has got underway for over a year, is experiencing delays due to a shortage of materials, especially sand, for the roadbed in two sections within Dong Nai Province.

A section of the Bien Hoa-Dong Nai Expressway running through Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province – PHOTO: HOANG VU

For Package 9 under Component 1, over 1.3 million cubic meters of fill sand is needed. Despite significant progress in site clearance, the contractor has only managed to fill a few tens of thousands of cubic meters due to the limited supply of designated quarries for extraction.

Similarly, Package 10 requires more than 1.7 million cubic meters of sand, but contractors are currently only able to source about 1,000 cubic meters per day.

Component 2 is in need of over 3 million cubic meters of fill soil, with insufficient supply available.

The expressway section through Dong Nai Province spans over 34 kilometers and requires a total of more than five million cubic meters of fill soil. The province has struggled to secure sufficient fill material due to the complex and time-consuming procedures for granting mining licenses.

In response, Dong Nai authorities have proposed that the prime minister and the National Assembly Standing Committee approve the recovery of fill material from the area planned for Terminal T3 of Long Thanh Airport (phase 2) to supply the expressway project.

In mid-July, Dong Nai further proposed the prime minister approve the extraction and use of fill soil from several areas not included in mining planning for the project.

The province has also been in discussions with the Southern Airports Authority and the Airports Corporation of Vietnam regarding the potential extraction of around five million cubic meters of soil from Long Thanh airport to meet the expressway’s roadbed requirements. This solution could also reduce construction costs by around VND400 billion compared to purchasing commercial sand.

(Source:SGT)