Possible Labor Woes for the Canal Expansion?

Below is a link to a brief article concerning management and labor's favorite topic... costs and cost overruns for the Canal expansion.

http://www.pulse.me/ap/6d92b3145d98488eac6366cf29dda30c?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

Another article on the same subject...

http://gcaptain.com/panama-presses-spain-and-italy-to-resolve-canal-cost-row/

Thanks to both for the above articles. We are heading thru the canal in March and ready to go now

Will be interesting to see if the contractor actually does cease work.

The ACP certainly isn't wasting time getting out in front of the disagreement with the primary contractor consortium GUPC. The following link from the Canal's website will take you to a Q&A about the project, the ACP's statement of myths surrounding the disagreements and some photos the project.

http://micanaldepanama.com/expansion/

Also there is a link on that page that may not be obvious, but it takes you to a 12 page pdf that is a good overview of the expansion project.

https://www.pancanal.com/eng/expansion/rpts/components/components-201309.pdf

Here's the latest on the talks between the consortium of contractors and the Canal Authority...things not going so well at the moment.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-05/sacyr-says-panama-canal-broke-off-talks-on-1-6-billion-overrun.html

http://www.pancanal.com/eng/pr/press-releases/2014/02/05/pr500.html

One of local newspapers had an article about the canal this morning.

Work halted on Wednesday due to $1.63 Billion in overruns.

National Public Radio's show "All Things Considered" had a short blurb last night indicating that talks have broken down between the Canal Authority and contractor.

Not a lot of new info in this article from the AP, just a little more detail and the indication that both sides are digging in.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/panama-canal-expansion-stops-amid-dispute

While it appears some movement towards reaching an agreement between the ACP (Spanish initials for Panama Canal Authority) and the consortium of contractors, there is a dark cloud.... At the end of the linked article it states that the Canal's Administrator Jorge Quijano says the project will not be completed until the end of 2015. Not really the news shippers or us Canal watchers would like to hear.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/progress-seen-on-panama-canal-impasse-2014-02-14-194491356

Hopefully some good news... Even though there are some issues to be settled, work is "supposed" to start again today (Thursday 2/20) on the new expansion locks.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303636404579393974243617500?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303636404579393974243617500.html

http://gcaptain.com/panama-canal-work-to-restart-thursday/

Looks like everything has been settled (for now at least) and they have all the i(s) and t(s) dotted or crossed. The end of 2015 is the new target date.

http://gcaptain.com/panama-canal-expansion-consortium-sign-deal-end-dispute/

Looks like everything has been settled (for now at least) and they have all the i(s) and t(s) dotted or crossed. The end of 2015 is the new target date.

 

http://gcaptain.com/panama-canal-expansion-consortium-sign-deal-end-dispute/

Great news. Has the estimate for completion changed again?

Edit: oops I missed the line stating December 2015

Looks like everything has been settled (for now at least) and they have all the i(s) and t(s) dotted or crossed. The end of 2015 is the new target date.

 

http://gcaptain.com/panama-canal-expansion-consortium-sign-deal-end-dispute/

Thank you for the update.