This Blog
has reported many times the amount of money in dispute with Astaldi is in the range of $600-800 million.
CEO
Stan Marshall confirmed the sum yesterday. Nalcor, he told reporters, had reached
a new contract with Astaldi increasing the value of the original contract by a whopping $700 million ($1.15
billion according to Marshall but $1.0 billion was the figure first reported).
Some of this
money was accounted for in the revised $11.4-billion estimate – making the net
impact $270 million. If the PR types think this early attempt to soften the blow, given the size of the award, they are mistaken.
$700 million
is a staggering sum. It not only creates a new and higher project cost estimate
of $11.67 billion, it forces us to ask for the thousandth time: does anyone at
Nalcor know what they are doing? And, why hasn’t Stan Marshall sent them away?
