Danube bridge 2 will be opened by the end of 2011

The construction of Danube Bridge, which is being built by a unique technology, is delaying and will most probably be lounged by the end of 2011. This is what Konstantin Zhiponov, the director`s substitute on the project for Danube Bridge 2- the engineer for the bridge on the behalf of the Bulgarian side, stated.

The optimistic version is June 2011, and pessimistic - five months later. Most likely is that the costs will increase with about 20-30 percent. It is expected an extension of the time to absorb the funds allocated for the construction of a bridge under the ISPA program, the deadline for which expires after a year, noted the expert.

Zhiponov notes that there is a serious delay in the construction which effects on the completion dates. As main reasons he points out the geological conditions in the region- in the water and on the shore; as well as the delay of almost half year of the permission for the access of the Spanish FCC Construccion to the Romanian shore.

Till now the builders have built only test pilots on the Romanian side and their testing is completed.

According to the contract, the Romanians had to issue permit for accessing their beach front in June 2008.The papers were issued a year later on 15 May 2009.

At present FCC is getting ready for construction work ont he Romanian beach as well.

"The building works for the bridge as well as for the infrastructure on th eBulgarian beach are at an advanced stage.The installation of the first 250 tones segment of the top construction of the Dunav bridge 2 was completed a few days ago.

The first segment of the 150 with a width of 2.50 meters is mounted on a pillar number one of the supporting columns of the facility. Support column number three and two, which are located in the river, are almost completed. The top construction of Danube Bridge 2 will be built on the so-called balanced cantilever method, which is unique, "explained Zhiponov.

The support pillars at the deepest part- Vidin- Kalafat have been started. For the time being there is no reason to stop the ships traffic which will come on a later stage for which purpose there has been issued a special throughput regime of floating around the construction area.

The new work schedule of FCC is predicting a completion date by the end of 2011. In order to prolong the contract there has to be signed an annex. The European Commission is aware of the progress on the construction and knows about the need of more time. The exceeding of the completion time does not mean that the rest of the participants in the infrastructural part of the project won't be lounged. Meaning the crossroads, bridges and etc.

Zhiponov claims that until that moment 40 000 000 Euros of the ISPA program have been absorbed. There are 30 000 000 Euros left that have to be absorbed by 2010 by the contract. Now most likely the completion date will be moved to 2011 and the bridge will be finished by the end of the year.