Priority of the second five-year plan of the State Programme of Industrial and Innovative Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2015-2019 will be the construction of motorways.

New motorways should improve the investment climate in the country, develop its transit and tourist potential, but first of all, ensure safety for drivers of motor vehicles. Hadji Hadjiev, Managing Director of the Division for the construction of motorways of “Jol Jondeushi” LLP described how the sections of the Almaty-Ust-Kamenogorsk motorway and the Centre-South corridor are being renovated today.

Note: “Jol Jondeushi” LLP is the General contractor of “SA Construction Group” company for the Almaty-Ust-Kamenogorsk road objects and the Center-South corridor.

In the spring of 2015, the company embarked on a new project, the reconstruction of 17.1 km four-lane section of the Center-South corridor “Astana-Karaganda-Balkhash-Almaty” of the motorway Border of the Russian Federation (to Yekaterinburg). The reconstruction will allow to shift the route from the second technical category to the first one. So far, under the project the works were completed on the construction of the roadbed, and layers of pavement are being laid – the crushed stone-cement sand mixture, the penultimate before the concrete layer.

Furthemore, our builders are working on overpasses in the villages of Baymyrza in Bukhar-Zhyrau district and Oshagandy in Osakarovsky district of the Karaganda region. These are serious facilities that require greater specialization, experience and responsibility. Alongside with that, according to the project, the company shall construct several agricultural roads and droves.

In general, for the current year we have planned the construction of 10 km of road in one direction. The key factor is the weather to let us work. After all, we cannot rely for a weather forecast in our region. A week ago, no one promised to lower the temperature below zero, and now at night the air temperature reaches a point of minus one degree Celcius, and concrete, as is known, cannot be laid at a sub-zero temperature.

            It is known that the construction of motor roads is significantly influenced not only by the terrain, but by climatic conditions. Given the dramatic and continental climate, the abundance of rains and floods, it certainly could not help but                       affect the road construction works. Do builders meet deadlines set by the schedule?

Certainly, the saturation of the roadbed with moisture is dangerous and can affect the strength of road pavement, stability of the roadbed and the filling base. It was the natural conditions, the rains and the floods of the current year, that have caused major difficulties for us, especially at the Centre-South corridor reconstruction project. In fact, we commenced works in June because it was raining in April and May.  We had to work in very difficult conditions. All Kazakhstan remembers the challenges facing the region this spring.

State of the road in the spring 2015.

The construction workers had to go below the elevation for a meter and even one and a half meter, opening the moist soil, which could not be compacted, but was constantly watered up, because of what we had weeks to wait for it to dry out. We carried out dehydration measures, made bends, then the bottom layer was stabilized with a rocky ground, which took about 100 thousand m3 of rock.

There were also difficulties with artificial constructions, such as overpasses, agricultural roads, droves and pipes. All of this in the compartment resulted in a loss of almost two months of time. At a certain site, the roadbed did not dry out for 3-4 months, so we excavated the upper ground layer, but the water was all there. We pumped it out, but the water kept coming, and there was nothing we could do about it. However, thanks to the measures taken, we still managed to drain this section of the road and cover it up. In the near future, we’ll finish here laying pipes and construction of a drove (stock route.) In general, in the next couple of weeks, we hope to finish the work on all major artificial structures.

The shortage of inert materials also is due to the loss of time. And this despite the fact that the region where road construction works are conducted is rich in deposits of crushed stone, sand, etc., needed for the project. Works on the Center-South project are being carried out at a rapid pace, which is associated with the rapid completion of construction work with the onset of winter cold. We are provided with four ballast pits, and besides the company has installed its own crushers facilities at the quarries, to assist those already in force. The volume of materials used by the project daily is 15 thousand tons.

In addition, during the construction of the road, we ran into a pipeline of Kaztransoil JSC, which crosses the road. The issue of transferring the site is certainly very complex and does not depend on us. The same thing happened with the networks of JSC “Kazakhtelecom” and wires of “Beeline” company. We had to wait for a redesign and transfer cables, which slowed down the construction process. A great help in dealing with these and other issues is provided by the JSC “Kazavtozhol”, whose representation on the project which always comes to meet us, and helps keeps abreast. For example, in the construction of the Almaty-Kapshagai section, the high-voltage power transmission line passed very low over the road bed that had risen during the reconstruction. For a long time, we could not resolve this issue with the JSC KEGOC, and contacted the specialists of the JSC Kazavtozhol, who have helped us.

Ultimately, despite the natural cataclysms that delayed us in the spring, we worked with double efforts in the summer. The schedule is very tight, and the progress of work is on the state control. However, the most modern special equipment of world manufacturers purchased by the company for projects, helped us to catch up with the schedule. Ultimately, specialists with many years of experience are employed at the construction site today, which allows us to conduct the work according to schedule.