After more than a year of research, authorities determined that 145 million cubic meters of sea sand in Soc Trang can be used immediately as highway embankment material.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment announced the above information at the Industry Review Conference on the morning of December 31. Over the past year, the Vietnam Geological Survey has researched a project to assess mineral resources for sand exploitation to meet the needs of filling highway projects and urban and transport infrastructure in the Mekong Delta.
The assessment area is 250 km2 in the sea area of Soc Trang province, 16-18 km from the shore. The research agency has identified a sea sand mineral body on an area of 160 km2 with sea sand reserves meeting the standards for urban infrastructure filling and road filling. The structure of the mineral body is fine-grained, loose sand mixed with a little powder. The uniformity of composition and grain size is quite high. The average thickness of the sand body is 4.3 m; the average total sand content is 82.8%.
"The sea sand in the area is assessed as fine-grained sand, mainly composed of quartz, with an average density of 6.39%," said the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
Mr. Vuong Quoc Nam, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Soc Trang province, said that the province has received the handover of the exploitation area of 145 million m3 of sea sand from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Ministry of Transport. As this is an unprecedented activity, Soc Trang departments are actively coordinating with the two ministries to complete the documents and soon exploit to meet the needs of highway construction.
The proposed area for sand mining is about 18-20 km from shore.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that the demand for filling materials for transport infrastructure projects last year was very high. Early next year, the demand is forecast to continue to increase as many key transport projects continue to be started. "To prepare materials for construction, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment needs to actively coordinate with localities to study the use of filling materials, especially sea sand," said the Government leader.
Sand mining in the Mekong Delta is facing many difficulties due to the risk of landslides as well as the amount of sand flowing from the upper Mekong into Vietnam via the Tien River (Tan Chau, An Giang and Hong Ngu, Dong Thap) and the Hau River (Chau Doc, An Giang) being much lower than previously estimated.
Meanwhile, the demand for sand as a filling material in the Mekong Delta is currently very high, and the limited local supply has caused many key expressways to be at risk of being behind schedule. For example, the 110km Can Tho - Ca Mau expressway requires 18.1 million m3 of sand, but only nearly 1.5 million m3 (8%) has been supplied, causing the project to be 3 months behind schedule.
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