Cargo has everything in a new order – Newspaper Kommersant No. 168 (7369) dated 09/13/2022

The government is considering extending the temporary rules for determining the order of cargo transportation, which replaced the rules for non-discriminatory access to railway infrastructure, until July 2023. Coal miners and the Ministry of Energy continue to demand the return of the old rules, but Russian Railways says that the new procedure allows exporting goods from other regions that have lost European sales markets to the east. According to experts, the shortcoming of the provisional order is that it is accepted at the level of the carrier, and not the government. This reduces transparency and could negatively affect exports.

Sources of Kommersant in the market said that the abolition of the rules of non-discriminatory access (NAP) to the railway infrastructure, introduced after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, could be extended until July 1, 2023. PND, which determine, among other things, the procedure for passing cargo through the Eastern range, ceased to operate in March (see “Kommersant” dated March 9). It was replaced by a temporary procedure for determining the order of cargo, approved by Russian Railways.

The abolition of PND was the most angered by coal miners, since their products from key regions for which a quota for deliveries to the east for export was determined, such as Kuzbass, Buryatia, Khakassia and Tuva, lost priority at the Eastern landfill.

Access to the BAM and the Trans-Siberian Railway was given to highly processed cargoes and products of the North-West regions, which lost markets in Europe. Initially, the PND was suspended until July 1. Then the cancellation was extended until the end of the year, introducing quotas for coal regions and a system for their distribution among Kuzbass companies (see “Kommersant” dated June 29). The amendments did not affect the place of coal in the general procedure for the passage of goods.

As the head of Kuzbass Sergey Tsivilev spoke at the WEF, despite the increase on behalf of the president (see “Kommersant” dated May 14, 2021) quotas for Kuzbass by 5 million tons to 58 million tons, “we will carry even less than last year, and much less” – 49 million tons. According to the official, exports have decreased in almost all regions of the Siberian Federal District. Andrey Makarov, Deputy General Director of Russian Railways, explained in response that this year the structure of freight traffic to the east has changed dramatically: “We carried cargo from the North-West, we transported timber, transported more oil, processed products, chemicals.” He said that this made it possible to save more than 300 thousand jobs in April-May in the North-West and in the central regions.

At the secretariat of First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov and the FAS did not respond to requests from Kommersant. Russian Railways reported that the suspension of the PND “has shown its effectiveness as a forced measure in the face of sanctions restrictions and outpacing growth in demand for transportation in the east.”

“Changing the order of receiving goods in favor of goods for domestic consumption, as well as high-added products, made it possible to send goods to the Far East to hundreds of new shippers along with existing customers,” the monopoly emphasized.

At the same time, the head of the Ministry of Energy, Nikolai Shulginov, said at the WEF on September 7 that the ministry was in favor of returning the IPA. “The distribution of goods is carried out according to the temporary rules of Russian Railways, they themselves determine the priority,” he said. “So far, preference is given to higher-margin products for transportation: oil, oil products, metals, and so on. While this is a temporary approach, and we are in favor of bringing back the IPA theme, this is a more correct scheduling system for goods. The Ministry of Energy did not provide any other comments.

The head of Infoline-Analytics, Mikhail Burmistrov, clarifies that the PND was adopted by a government decree, and the temporary rules are a document of Russian Railways. According to the expert, it doesn’t matter what document determines the procedure for access to the Eastern test site, however, it should be adopted at the government level, and not Russian Railways, because the carrier “does not see the parameters of the inter-industry balance, state support measures or, on the contrary, additional tax exemptions that go beyond railway tariffs, and under the current conditions cannot adequately and promptly respond to government tasks to stimulate this or that industry in the face of rapidly increasing sanctions pressure.”

Mr. Burmistrov notes that the situation with the carrying capacity will worsen due to secondary sanctions, an increase in the shortage of traction stock and the arrival of winter. Therefore, he believes, now it is necessary to ensure the maximization of exports, and the uncertainty and lack of transparency of the current procedure for accessing infrastructure does not contribute to solving this problem.

Natalya Skorlygina