The Panama Canal expansion is way over budget, and the situation for now is at an impasse, but at least the construction continues. . . until January 20th.
The GUPC consortium, which also includes Italy’s Impregilo, Belgium’s Jan De Nul and Panama’s Constructora Urbana SA, outbid Bechtel Group Inc., San Francisco, Calif., for the project in 2009. While the contract itself was for $3.1 billion, the Panama government has said the total cost of expanding the canal likely will top $5 billion.
So far, the scheduled completion date has been pushed back to to June 2015 rather than the original completion date of October of this year.