The progress of these sites is somewhat slower than 5% average of the previous months, June and July.
This is the eighth time in the past year when ZF has monitored the state of the ten most important highway construction sites in Romania, in an attempt to show how work goes.
The first 9.5-kilometer section of the Timisoara-Lugoj highway (west of the country) made most progress in the last month of the summer, as it had in the previous months, over 14%. It should be completed in a matter of days, or least this is what one of its builders, Spedition UMB, said.
The other EU-funded highways part of the European Corridor IV slowed down in the last summer month. The four sections of the Orastie-Sibiu highway, for instance, progressed by about 9% to 10% in July each, and by merely 2% at most in August. Deva-Orastie highway built by Strabag and Straco Grup, controlled by Alexandru and Traian Horpos, slowed down, too. While in July it advanced 11.7% towards completion, in August it only added 7.8%.
Mircea Pop, CNADNR general manager could not be reached by the time the story was ready for posting to explain why the slowdown in construction pace.
The very slow movers also include Suplacu de Barcau-Bors, the last section of the Transylvania highway that US’ Bechtel is working on. It only progressed 0.13% in the last summer month and less than 1% in 2012. However, Bechtel continued to collect overdue payment of at least EUR80 million this year, and by September 1, it had received EUR268 million of the EUR527 million it is due for this highway.
Although expected to be completed next April, the first section of the Nadlac-Arad highway (22.2 kilometers) is very slow to progress, only 1.1% in August, and 7.2% overall at the beginning of this fall. Its builders are Romstrade (owned by businessman Nelu Iordache) and Portugal’s Monteadriano Engenharia e Construcao.
The second section of the Nadlac-Arad, whose builder is Austria’s Alpine, saw a slowdown of the construction pace from 5.6% in July to 1.7% in August. However, this highway section is already about 50% completed.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)