Next week investors and builders will define if filtrations in some chambers of the Panama Canal expansion would compromise its commercial opening in April, 2016, it was announced here.
The work is 95 percent done, but fissures detected in the armed concrete floor of the new canal locks, last August, allow water to leak through, whose final technical report was not yet handed in by contractor Grupo Unidos por el Canal (Gupc), which will execute the repairs.
“We have weekly meetings with Gupc, in which they explained the method to be applied, and for now it is prudent for the Authority of the Canal of Panama (ACP),” Executive Vicepresident of Engineering and Programs of the ACP, Ilya Espino, told reporters.
On his part, the representative of Gupc, José Peláez, explained it is still too premature to indicate if the additional work would affect the date of completion of the work.
There was a dispute among the parts when the end-cost of the project increased to 3.4 billion what was originally contracted for three billion 118 million dollars.