HCMC – An expressway that links Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh provinces in central Vietnam needs some 13.9 million cubic meters of building materials such as sand and rocks, but the local mines cannot satisfy the demand, said the project’s contractor.

Ho Minh Hoang, chairman of Deo Ca Group, the general contractor of the project, recently said the material shortage might affect the pace of construction and that the issue had been reported to authorities but it had remained unsolved.

The Quang Ngai-Hoai Nhon expressway is one of the 12 sub-projects of phase two of the big-ticket North-South expressway project to be developed in the 2021-2025 period.

A consortium comprising three contractors – Deo Ca Traffic Infrastructure Investment JSC, Deo Ca Group and Dacinco Construction Investment – started work on the first package of the Quang Ngai-Hoai Nhon expressway on January 1 this year.

The consortium then mobilized 50 pieces of equipment and hundreds of employees to implement the construction package at five locations.

However, the consortium has been grappling with the lack of building materials. It has surveyed 34 soil mines, 19 quarries and 12 sand mines in the region, but their reserves are insufficient. Meanwhile, authorities have yet to approve four other mines containing some 1.2 million cubic meters of material for mining.

Regarding commercial mines, the owners showed signs of hoarding materials, news site vnexpress.vn reported.

The lack of building materials has plagued many infrastructure projects in the country. The Ministry of Transport, in coordination with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, has been weighing using sea sand and will release their evaluation results by the end of this year.

In the next two years, river sand will still serve as a major source for backfilling. The two ministries asked localities through which the expressway will pass to increase the capacity of the licensed mines.

The 88-kilometer Quang Ngai-Hoai Nhon expressway is expected to cost nearly VND20.4 trillion. It is slated for completion in September 2026.