Deo Ca tunnel digs deep to hit early deadline

Ho Minh Hoang, general director of Deo Ca Investment JSC

The Deo tunnel project has reportedly been carried out for nearly VND4 trillion ($190 million) less investment than the initial forecast. How did you accomplish that?

The project’s approved investment was set at VND15.6 trillion ($743 million) initially. Under instructions from Minister of Transport Dinh La Thang, the developer (DCIC) has expedited the project and applied wide-ranging measures to boost progress and manage investment costs.

Accordingly, DCIC has revised project items and made changes such as changing the material used for bridge construction from steel to concrete, and using available paths as service paths to save cost.

This has helped reduce investment cost significantly while not influencing the project’s scope, structure or usage efficiency.

We also shortened the project’s timeframe to save on cost. We have urged our primary contractors – Song Da 10 and Lung Lo Corporation – to mobilise all resources to accelerate the pace of construction.

Through such means we have revised the project’s total investment to just around VND12 trillion ($571 million), down VND3.6 trillion ($171 million) against the original figure.

How is the project going now?

In terms of progress, all the bidding packages are up to scratch as of this time. The first tunnel is slated to open for traffic later this year.

The project includes the main Deo Ca tunnel, a 9 kilometre access road, a bridge and the smaller 500-metre Co Ma tunnel.

As for the main tunnel, the contractors are preparing to dredge later this month.

Before the end of 2014, DCIC plans to complete construction of the approach road to the tunnel entrance, the entire bridge system and open Co Ma tunnel to vehicles, as well as finalise construction of the first 100 metres of the main tunnel.

Initially we planned to finish the project in 2017, but the MoT demanded a faster pace and we have now set a completion date of the fourth quarter 2016.

I believe that under the MoT’s close guidance and support from local authorities and contractors, the project is in a position to hit this deadline.