The expected The expansion of the Ushuaia pier will cost more than double of the budget originally agreed in 2021. It is the product of inflation and a reformulation in the work plans.

Specifically, the project will cost a billion dollars more than the 795 million calculated by the Tierra del Fuego government led by Gustavo Melella.

The work will be about $1.7 billion. for his final execution, it became known this week.

In principle, the pier was to be 80 meters long and 28 meters wide, plus the construction of a 20-meter mooring dolphin. But a reformulation brought the plan to 104 meters with the consequent increase in the budget.

However, inflation updates have seriously conditioned the initial calculations made in the Fuegian province.

On June 4, 20221, the province signed the contract with the Temporary Union of Enterprises (UTE) composed of Panedille Argentina, Concret-Nor and Nakon Sur for the realization of the pier project with an execution period of 15 months.

The cost was set at $795 million.. However, in mid-2022, the company requested an upgrade Valuable at $157.3 million, as reported by El Diario del Fin del Mundo. This is due to the 7-month period between the opening of the offer envelopes, which took place on 12 January 2021, the formal signing of the work commitment, on 4 June 2021, and the start of work scheduled for 13 June August of the same year. The company said there were known increases in inputs to be used in construction.

With that alone, the job skyrocketed to $952 million. But in late 2021, the Melella government decided to expand it by 24 meters with the help of the Alberto Fernández government, which had pledged another $200 million for its completion.

In September 2022, the new additional amount of $564 million was approved., bringing the global cost to $1.516 billion. To these were added another 176 million dollars related to the price increase of the period. Eventually the budget reached 1692 million dollars.

Completion projections are set for February or March of this year.

“The original work was awarded to the Transitional Union of Companies (UTE) Panedile Argentina, Concret-Nor and Nakon Sur with an official budget of $795 million and the second part added another $560 million, although in both cases the amounts have been changed. to various repricings”, indicated the specialized media Global Ports.

“It can be said that the work as a whole is proceeding according to the parameters of the offer. The extension of the additional 24 meters has already begun and we estimate that the works will be completed by the end of March”, the president of the Provincial Directorate of Ports, Roberto Murcia told Télam.

The expansion will improve the mooring capacity of the dock by 20%. Projections indicate that Ushuaia will receive 540 large ship arrivals in 2023.

NS