Fornebubanen cost overruns, Digi Mart USA News (Oslo, Norway): Finansavisen reports, citing its own sources, that new cost overruns for the Fornebubanen project could total between three and four billion Norwegian kroner. The paper says the increases are driven particularly by work on Fornebu station and the depot base for the metro cars.
Finansavisen reports that additional costs for the shell construction alone are estimated at around 1.5 billion kroner, partly due to a much greater need for reinforcement steel than planned. Interior fittings and technical installations are expected to show a budget deviation of roughly one billion kroner, the paper writes.
The contract for the Fornebuporten and Flytårnet stations is also expected to become significantly more expensive, according to the report. The paper says these figures are based on its own sources and the publisher article has not been independently verified.
The paper also cites a recent reply from Transport Minister Kamzy Gunaratnam (Labour Party), who described the cost situation as serious. In the reply, the minister confirmed that an updated forecast of the final cost is being prepared.
Gunaratnam also said the cost increase affects both the financing needs and the use of toll revenue in a revised Oslo Package 3.
Last autumn it became known that Fornebubanen could cost more than one billion kroner above the previously approved amount. Following this, Oslo’s municipal audit office announced it would examine the major project.
The background was a new crack linked to work at the far end of the route, where both the terminus and the depot for the metro cars at Fornebu are to be built.
Fornebubanen announced on November 12 that costs would exceed the management framework of 27.5 billion kroner, but did not give an exact overrun figure beyond saying it was more than one billion kroner.
