New DHB will have enough space for vessels to pass through – Min Edghill

– able to comfortably accommodate handymax cargo vessel

The Government of Guyana is assuring that the new Demerara River Bridge will have more than enough space for vessels, even one as big as a Handymax vessel, to pass through without any accident.
During a press conference on Saturday, in which he updated the media on efforts to return the Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB) to normalcy after an accident that took out four spans, Public Works Minister Juan Edghill noted the importance of the Government’s push to construct the new bridge.
“The bridge that we’re building, (contract of) which has already been awarded, is a high-span bridge that can facilitate a handymax vessel. The handymax vessel is a particular size of vessel, with a tower of a particular height. The span would be, I think, 210 metres wide (48 metres high), so nothing has to open for anything to pass through. It will be a big, wide span in the channel that you can just pass through,” Edghill explained.

Expounding on the dimensions of the new bridge, Minister within the Public Works Ministry, Deodat Indar, noted that the main span of the bridge; that is, the space between two support structures for the bridge, is 210 metres.
“The channel that the ships gotta come in, passing each other, is about 200 metres. We now dredging and expanding it, and ships are passing and don’t jam each other. Imagine if you have that level width of a span and you hit one of that,” he explained. “It has to be an outworldly event. It’s not impossible, but it has to be an outworldly event for you to have that amount of space and still drive into it…unless it’s an act of terrorism,” Indar explained.
Edghill, meanwhile, noted that work on the new bridge is progressing, and soon the work will be even more visible to observers, as the contractors mobilise skills and the necessary equipment, which have to be shipped in.
“Everyone in the media can see that preparatory works for the new Harbour Bridge are underway. For example, if you announce that you’re building a house, you don’t see the columns up in the air the same day. There are processes: you gotta do measurements, layouts, surveys; you gotta do every spot where those piles have to go into the river bed; have to do geotechnical surveys…” he detailed.
“A lot of work is being done. The time (is coming) when you’ll see heavy construction, machines, pile-driving and busyness, the contractor is also mobilising their skills into the country: the necessary visas, shipping equipment. So you’re going to see all of that soon,” he promised.
As it stands now, he said, preparatory work being done now includes the dredging of the Demerara River, the removal of wrecks, and other safety measures being implemented.
Back in May, a US$260 million contract for the new bridge across the Demerara River was signed. The contract was awarded to a joint venture led by China Railway and Construction Corporation (International) Limited, which outbid four other pre-qualified international companies that submitted proposals for the project.
Over the past few months, the Guyana Government, through a team of specialists – legal and engineering – has already negotiated with the Chinese company to finalise the terms of the contract.
The new bridge will be a fixed 2.65-kilometre, four-lane, high-span, cable-stayed structure across the Demerara River, with the width of the driving surface being about 23.6 metres. Featuring a bicycle lane, the bridge will bring an end to closures to vehicular traffic with a 50-metre, fixed high-span to cater for the free and uninterrupted flow of vessels. The river will be dredged along a 13.5-kilometre stretch to accommodate large vessels.
Back in November 2021, Cabinet granted its no-objection for the Chinese company to construct the bridge using a design-build-finance (DBF) model. The bridge will land aback Nandy Park, East Bank Demerara (EBD) on the eastern side, and at La Grange, West Bank Demerara (WBD) on the western side.
Already, the Guyana Government has allocated some $21.1 billion in the 2022 Budget towards work on the bridge. It will have a lifespan of 100 years. This new bridge will replace the ageing floating Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB), which has outlived its lifespan by several decades.