Today, the water level of the Hálslón reservoir has reached 562,2 metres, having risen by 60 cm in a single day, a tenfold increase compared to last week.

The majority of the water coat at the main dam at Kárahnjúkar is complete. The only patch left to be concreted is to be finished in spring. Icelandic contractor Suðurverk estimates that all of the filling material in Desjarárstífla dam will be in place before Christmas.

Last Friday, the gate equipment at the main dam was tested with very good results. The gate was opened for the first time since the reservoir began to form on the 28th of September.

Workers from Impregilo have erected tents on the edge of the main dam and intend to start working on a wave breaker. The wave breaker is a part of the finishing touches in the construction of the dam and will be six metres in height.

The Chinese drill operator was as expected, very happy when he climbed through the hole in the drill bit shortly after the TBM drilled through the last piece of rock remaining in the headrace tunnel. On Monday night, a malfunctioning electrical motor kept the TBM operators from reaching their final goal, but on Tuesday morning, everything worked according to plan.

Last Saturday, a worker from a Croatian contractor working for Landsnet died in an accident on the Fljótsdalsheiði moor when the transmission lines that will be used to transmit electrical power were being erected. The man died when an insulator fell from one of the towers and landed on him.

The water level of the reservoir has reached 559.5 meters above sea level. The most depth, closest to the dam, is 105.4 metres. 

TBM 3 moves slowly onwards and last week it drilled 75 metres. That left 200 metres of the headrace tunnel to be drilled and this part of the project will not be finished until December.

“The Hálslón reservoir will be a haven for pink footed geese and a good fishing lake in a few years,” said Sverrir Scheving Thorsteinsson, a geologist and glacier specialist, in an interview in Morgunbladid, an Icelandic newspaper, a few days ago.

The vertical tunnel at Hálsufs on the Fljótsdalsheiði moor has been drilled and for the next few week workers will reinforce the tunnel walls. The lower part of the tunnel will be steel lined as well. The shaft reaches 200 metres up from the headrace tunnel and to the surface and the diameter is 5 metres.

Impregilo workers have transported TBM 1 out through the headrace tunnel at Axará river. The next step is the dismantling of the machine and then it will be shipped out of the country.

Last Tuesday, the water levels at the Hálslón reservoir had reached over 556 metres above sea level.

TBM 1 has been taken apart inside the headrace tunnel and will be towed outside where it will be prepared for exportation. It finished its mission on the 9^th of September. The machine started drilling in September 2004 and has drilled 15 kilometres of tunnel. The TBM will be taken outside through adit 2 at Axará river.

The water level of the Hálslón reservoir is now 554 metres above sea level, with the most depth measuring exactly 100 metres.

Work is progressing at the Ufsarstífla dam where workers are busy at the bottom outlet. The contractor Arnarfell is in charge of the project which is one of many projects Arnarfell is involved in at Kárahnjúkar.

The vertical tunnel at Hálsufs on Fljótsdalsheiði moor reached 130 metres at the end of last week. When finished, the tunnel will measure 200 metres in height and five metres in diameter, leaving only a quarter of the way to go. The drilling of the tunnel was delayed for five days when a new drill bit had to be attached.

Yesterday, the water level at Hálslón reservoir had reached 552 metres above sea level. At its deepest, the reservoir was 98 metres deep and the size has grown to 10 square kilometres.

The water level in the Hálslón reservoir was on Wednesday morning at 546 metres above sea level, and the depth of the lagoon 92 metres, at its deepest. The levels rose at a rate of two metres a day last week, but with cooler weather the level rises at a slower speed, or by a metre a day.

In the Highland the weather shifts at a faster rate than elsewhere.

The earthquake sensors at Kárahnjúkar are so sensitive, that the machines used for the construction work register on the charts, and seize to do so during lunch break!

On Tuesday, the water levels at the reservoir had risen to 544 metres above sea level.

The first section of the concrete “block” in the bypass tunnel at the main dam is finished. The block will be 25 metres thick but the first section is eight metres. Of the three TBMs, only TBM 3 is in operation. The machine is doing well and drilled some 190 metres last week. At the end of the week some 550 metres remained for it to drill and it is estimated that the TBM will break through in late November.

The water level on October 11th, day 13, is approx 533 m. above sea level and the depth is approx 80 m.

The Hálslón reservoir has reached Kringilsá river, half way to the glacier and its size is 3,5 square kilometres.

TBM 2 was stopped last weekend as it has finished drilling its part of the headrace tunnel. TBM 3 will continue moving ahead and will finish what remains of the tunnel. The machine is expected to “break through” late November.

On Friday night, the water level in Hálslón reservoir had reached 500 metres above sea level. It was 50 metres in depth at its deepest. When complete, the lagoon will be 170 metres deep next to the dam.

Concrete work inside Valþjófsstaðarfjall mountain is all but over. Concrete work is complete on the six turbines. Turbina 1 is near completion and the other five are at different stages in the installation process.

Preparations for the formation of the Hálslón reservoir kept Impregilo workers busy last week and for the better part of this one. When the time was right, on Thursday, the bypass tunnel was closed, and the water from Jökla river started to form the huge reservoir.

Gianni Porta, head of Italian contractor Impregilo regarding the Kárahnjúkar project gave a warm welcome to controllers of TBM 1 when they had broken through the last slab of rock on the drills path, fifteen kilometres and two years after the drill started its journey through the mountain. As can be seen in the picture on the right Mr. Porta and Mr. Qing, the TBM 1 head operator, were in high spirits when the milestone had been reached.

TBM 2 drilled 92 metres last Saturday, September 9th, the longest a TBM has ever drilled in a day here in Iceland. The record was set at the same time the brekthrough of TBM 1 was being celebrated. So, one milestone follows the next here at Kárahnjúkar and more will follow in the coming weeks and months.

At the end of August, 12. 483 guests had visited the information centre in Végardur. Of those, 1,476 were foreigners. In the summer of 2005 10.986 guests visited the centre and the total guest number for the year was 11.881.

A milestone was reached on Friday the 1st of september when workers from Icelandic contractor Arnarfell broke through in the headrace tunnel. Originally, TBM 3 was intenden to finish that part of the tunnel but when it was decided to turn it around, the remaining distance was dug using conventional methods.

The main damn is reaching full height and at the end of last week only one percent of the filling material remained to be put in place.

Workers have finished steel lining the two penstocks from the bottom to the top where they will connect to the headrace tunnels, 420 metres above the powerhouse inside Valþjófstaðarfjall Mountain.

TBM 2 is moving fast these days and last Friday it set a new record by drilling 87 metres in 24 hours. The machine drilled almost 280 metres last week vastly outperforming the other TBMs.

Workers from Italian contractor Impregilo have completed 63.000 square metres of the concrete coat that will guard the dam on the waterside.

TBM 3 drilled 300 metres last week, the second best achievment in a week since the beginning of the project.

TBM 2 has continued its run since having cleared the fault that had caused trouble. Last week it drilled 260 metres while the other two machines drilled 285 metres between them.

TBM 2 went on a roll after being stuck in a fault for three weeks. It drilled over 170 metres last week.

On Saturday morning, workers from Icelandic contractor Arnarfell blasted the final hindrance of rock to the intake at the Hálslón reservoir in the headrace tunnel. The milestone was reached around nine in the morning and afterwards the men celebrated accordingly.

TBM 2 has passed through the fault that has hindered it for the last two weeks and is making good progress right now. The rock conditions were unfavourable for TBM 3 thus explaining the lower-than-usual numbers.

It is estimated that workers from Icelandic contractor Arnarfell will “punch through” in the headrace tunnel towards Hálslón reservoir. With that over and done with, they will turn their attention to the task of didding and blasting in the other direction.

The top level at Turbine 6 in the powerhouse was finished on Wednesday, thus marking the end of concrete work in the powerhouse as well as in the transformer hall.

Tomorrow, Saturday the 9th of september, TBM 1 is expected to “break through” in the headrace tunnel and finishing it´s intended job of drilling 15 kilometres of tunnels between the Hálslón reservoir and Fljótsdalur valley.

The three TBMs did poorly in week 26 and between them they only drilled just over 140 metres.