Nalcor Energy says until construction resumes, the impact of COVID-19 on Muskrat Falls’ final cost and schedule won’t be known.

The pandemic forced the suspension of work on the project in March. With that time lost, completion of Muskrat Falls project has been delayed by four months. However, under new health guidelines, completion could be pushed back another two to six months.

Nalcor says rough cost estimates for a six-month delay are up to $200-million, before financing and interest payments. There are also bond and interest payments that now need to be funded through the province. If the project should be delayed another six months beyond the end of this year, the added costs could amount to approximately $400-million.

President and CEO, Stan Marshall says the pandemic creates a great deal of uncertainty. They’re not certain how productive they can be under the new protocols, so they’re doing some modeling of different scenarios.

Marshall says they have the proper PPE for those who will return to work and the process of resuming operations will be gradual to ensure protocols are followed. He says they’ve also changed the way they are operating their camps for workers, and now a rotation will take place every two-weeks.

Marshall says their first priority is safety.

Not as Much Time Lost on GE Software Development

Meanwhile, Marshall says work on the General Electric software is very similar to work on Muskrat Falls.

Marshall says employees work in close quarters and shutdown months ago due to the pandemic. He says they have lost work and but not quite as much as on the Muskrat Falls megaproject.

Marshall says they’re getting back to work on the GE software a little more quickly, as it’s on the island and people are not in camps. He explains that they didn’t lose a full four months because GE employees were able to work during the shutdown and employees from Europe worked from home and made progress.

Marshall says they got their first acceptance test done and were able to make up some of the lost time.