The $3.6 billion project to build Vietnam’s first international transshipment port in Van Ninh District is now a deserted construction site with thousands of steel and concrete stakes left rusting on the sand.

Construction works have in fact ceased since last August due to disagreements between the project’s investor, the Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines), and the contractor, Korea-based SK Engineering & Construction Corp.

Throwing money away Now that the project is completely stopped, none of the involved parties know when it will be reactivated, while the total investment is expected to rise by at least 50 percent.

This means more 3 trillion dong ($146.3 million) will be thrown into the project when it resumes, though this project has already been wasting a hefty sum by remaining sluggish in the past two years.

Tran Huu Chieu, deputy CEO of Vinalines, told that the Van Phong port would not follow the origin design as consulted by Portcoast

Consultant Co. to receive 6,000-9,000 TEU container ships but would have a Vinalines subsidiary work out on a new design to accommodate 12,000-15,000 TEU vessels.

But Portcoast’s spokesperson said although their design was not used, Vinalines still had to clear the 20 billion dong consultant fees as contracted.

Moreover, more than 200 billion dong have been disbursed to build certain units of the project will also be wasted since they will not be reused once construction works resume.

A source told that Vinalines chief executives had also frittered away some 325 billion dong by accepting the exorbitant prices of raw materials as suggested in the contract.

And another massive sum of 150 billion dong Vinalines paid a Korea-based insurer to guarantee for the money payment in advance to the contractor is also likely to be lost due to some unclear clauses in the contract.

However, seaport experts said the largest damage caused by this stalled project was the annual loss of $160 million since the port failed to handle 0.71 million TEU a year as expected.

Getting out of the mud A contractor who used to participate in the Van Phong project said the cause of the whole mess was Vinalines’ poor finance.

He said since the capital needed for the project had unexpectedly soared to 9 trillion dong, Vinalines had to attract more foreign investors to ease its burden and speed up construction.

Chieu said Vinalines had signed a memorandum about the Van Phong port with Netherlands- based Rotterdam Port Co. He said the Dutch company was planning to come to Vietnam to discuss further about which part of the project it would join in. “Vinalines wants to have Rotterdam open its wallet,” he said.