Romania's public road company CNAIR accepted to increase by 23% to RON 2 billion (EUR 400 million) the price of the motorway segment Curtea de Arges - Tigveni built by Austrian company Porr, which mainly includes a 1.35km tunnel – the first tunnel under construction on a motorway in Romania.

"It is a state-of-the-art technology for tunnel construction and monitoring worldwide.[...] NATM is a state-of-the-art technology in tunneling. The ground is soft, it's like digging in the sand," said tunnel project manager Norbert Horelein, quoted by Economedia.ro.

The contract was signed on November 15, 2021, and Porr started the work this spring.

The price of contracts where works have already begun can be indexed under ordinance 64/2022 on the grounds that the costs incurred by the construction companies have increased.

Porr is working with 300 workers and 100 machines on the Curtea de Argeș-Tigveni lot, lot 4 of the Sibiu-Pitesti Highway, and the mobilization is "efficient", the state secretary in the Ministry of Transport, Ionel Scrioșteanu, recently estimated.

Lot 4 Curtea de Argeș-Tigveni is almost 10km long, of which the Momaia tunnel is 1.35km long. The tunnel team brought from Austria has 60 experts, and in the next period, their number will be doubled.

iulian@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Hxdylzj/Dreamstime.com)