Two years since the groundbreaking ceremony, the North-South expressway project, Quang Ngai - Hoai Nhon section, has gradually taken shape and contractors are focusing on completing it in 2025, about 8 months shorter than the signed contract.
Overcoming challenges from the early days
Starting in 2025, the North-South Expressway project construction site is in a new phase of urgency to shorten the progress, reach the finish line early, and contribute to successfully achieving the milestone of 3,000km of expressway as required by the Prime Minister.
With improved tunneling methods, the mountain tunnels on the Quang Ngai - Hoai Nhon highway are ahead of schedule.
Leading the consortium of contractors for the project, the leader of Deo Ca Group cannot help but reminisce about the early days - a time when challenges were everywhere: slow site clearance, shortage of materials, unfavorable weather, procedural problems...
To avoid having to wait for the site, right after the groundbreaking ceremony, the unit and contractors in the joint venture immediately got to work. At some locations that play a decisive role in the progress such as: Ve River Bridge, tunnels 1, 2, 3... the contractor proactively negotiated to rent land from local people to build service roads to access the construction site; invested in crushing stations on the basis of utilizing tunnel excavated rock as materials for the project's construction.
Control progress by drawing on experience
Determining Quang Ngai - Hoai Nhon as the largest project among 12 component projects of the North - South Eastern Expressway Project Phase 2, with a long terrain, a series of experiences drawn from previous complex projects are also applied by Deo Ca Group to manage and optimize costs.
“Careful preparation of machinery, equipment, human resources, finance, especially coordination and collaboration with other contractors in the consortium and local authorities are considered prerequisites for good control of progress and quality.
As the leading unit of the consortium, Deo Ca Group has proactively organized the assessment of the contractors' practical capacity, provided management and operation tools, organized training, applied digital technology, published information, and progress of the bidding packages... to jointly check and monitor the implementation process of the parties," said a representative of Deo Ca Group.
Thoroughly implementing the Prime Minister's directive: "Where there are difficulties, there must be solutions; at which level must the problem be solved"; "Do not say no, do not say difficult, do not say yes but do not do", the Ministry of Transport and the investor have coordinated with relevant ministries and branches to establish a working group to directly work with localities to grasp and handle according to their authority; advise the Government to issue many directives to ministries, branches and localities to deploy solutions, helping contractors to remove material bottlenecks.
"The coordination and strong direction of the local authorities where the project is located regarding site clearance, relocation of technical infrastructure, and speeding up procedures for granting material mines have created great momentum for the contractor to accelerate," said the contractor's representative.
Last tunnel cleared on April 30
Undertaking the construction of 3 mountain tunnels in the project, Deo Ca Group has researched and applied the "Deo Ca system" tunneling method, increasing the number of construction heads from 4 to 6, increasing the efficiency of machinery and equipment use, shortening construction time, saving costs and increasing the load-bearing safety of the tunnel structure.
Deo Ca Group constructs the main road of Quang Ngai - Hoai Nhon expressway.
This method helped the construction of tunnel 1 and tunnel 2 to be 2 months and 4 months ahead of schedule, respectively. The water circulation solution in tunnel construction also helped save 90% of water consumption.
After 2 years of construction, the Quang Ngai - Hoai Nhon expressway has taken shape, to date the output has reached nearly 55% of the total volume, 2 out of 3 mountain tunnels on the route have been basically completed.
“Tunnel No. 3 alone has dug 4,500/6,400m, and is expected to be opened on April 30, 2025, contributing to bringing the project straight to the finish line in December 2025,” the leader of Deo Ca Group shared, and also informed that, regarding the bridge section, 47/77 bridges have deployed girder installation, 33/77 bridges have deployed bridge deck construction. Particularly, Song Ve Bridge, 600m long - the largest bridge item on the route, has completed the installation of bridge deck girder installation.
The main road section has basically completed the embankment. Some sections are being paved with asphalt concrete. Throughout the project, more than 4,000 personnel and more than 1,750 machines and equipment have been mobilized to the construction site, deploying 50 construction teams.
All 3 packages (XL1, XL2, XL3) are organized to work in 3 shifts. For the tunnel items, the contractor performs construction continuously 24/7. Engineers and workers take turns working on the construction site continuously without stopping.
"The joint venture is determined to complete the project 8 months early, meeting the schedule and quality according to technical requirements," the representative of the leading unit of the joint venture affirmed.
Quang Ngai – Hoai Nhon Expressway is 88km long, with a total investment of 20,400 billion VND. The contractor consortium is led by Deo Ca Group.
On the route there are 64 main bridges, 6 interchanges, 13 direct overpasses and 3 mountain tunnels with lengths of 610m, 700m and 3,200m respectively.
Of which, tunnel number 3 is the largest newly built tunnel on the North-South expressway and the third largest in the country after Hai Van tunnel and Deo Ca tunnel.
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