The final costs of the construction of Peljesac Bridge and access roads will be higher by approximately 10% than the value mentioned in the contract signed for this project, the Jutarnji List (JL) daily reported on Monday, explaining that this means an additional €40 million.

According to the data provided by the Croatian state-owned road operator Hrvatske Ceste, €436.8 million has so far been disbursed to the companies engaged in the implementation of the construction segment of the project. This amount includes €22.5 million paid for additional costs after the determination of the initial price.

The three companies were engaged in the construction segment: the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) built the bridge, Austria’s Strabag built the access road from Duboka to Sparagovici, while the Greek AVAX built the Sparagovici-Doli access road the the Ston bypass.

Building the bridge and the access roads took four years. In that period prices of construction material and labour soared due to the disruption in supply chains caused by the COVID pandemic and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the daily newspaper recalls.

HC executives and the three companies have been conducting negotiations for a year on accepting admissible additional costs.

So far, a deal has been reached only with the Greek AVAX on paying an additional €8.3 million, and the Greeks thus received €79.9 in total.

Strabag has been paid €73.7 million which included €8.2 million more than the initial cost, and the negotiations are still under way for paying some of the additional costs the company claims to have had.

The Chinese CRBC has received €283.1 million for building the bridge, which included also €5.3 million of additional costs. However, the daily reported the company demands some more money to cover its additional costs which it incurred during the construction of the bridge.

The total value of the entire project was slightly more than €531 million, and EU grants covered 85% of that amount.

The bridge, designed by Slovenian Marjan Pipenbaher, spans a total of 2,404 metres, and it is 55 metres high to meet the request of Bosnia and Herzegovina to ensure the unimpeded and smooth passage of ships to Neum.

The bridge is intended for traffic exclusively by motor vehicles, and traffic goes in both directions on two lanes. There are no sidewalks or bike lanes. Parallel to the construction of the bridge, access roads were also built on often extremely rugged terrain.

Everything was finished on 19 April this year, when the Ston bypass, the section Prapratno – Doli, was put into traffic.