Railways change time for money

JSC Russian Railways calculated that in order to complete the work on the Komsomolsk-Vanino section of the second stage of the BAM and Trans-Siberian modernization program on time, the company needs to increase the tariff for shippers to the Vanino-Sovgavansky junction by 15% from 2024 for three years. Overall growth should be 28%, but part of it will be financed by loans. There have been no precedents for the introduction of such an investment tariff on the railway, and analysts doubt that shippers will agree without receiving in return a priority right to travel on infrastructure, which by law cannot be given.

JSC Russian Railways has determined what investment tariff it intends to take from shippers shipping to the Vanino-Sovgavansky junction, if the monopoly is faced with the need to commission 14 objects of the second stage of the BAM on time.

Kommersant has already reported on the adjustment proposed by Russian Railways, which involves the postponement of the commissioning of 14 facilities on the Komsomolsk-Vanino section from 2024 to 2025 (see Kommersant dated December 12, 2022 and January 23). As a result, the nominal carrying capacity of the section will decrease by 24 million tons (Russian Railways specifies that it is actually only 8.6 million tons), and it was proposed to redirect this cargo flow to the Nizhneleninskoye-Tongjiang border crossing and the ports of the Trans-Siberian Railway. However, not all departments agreed to the transfer. As a result, the government instructed the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Construction and Russian Railways to consider it further, and if it turns out that the transfer is impossible, to consider the possibility of introducing an investment tariff for shippers on Vanino in order to finance the work on the previously scheduled date (see “Kommersant” dated March 9).

According to a letter from the First Deputy General Director of Russian Railways, Vadim Mikhailov, to the relevant departments in response to an instruction, the option of maximizing the timing of the commissioning of these facilities, worked out by Russian Railways, involves the opening of the working movement in 2024 for 13 objects and in 2025 for the most difficult object “the second main track on the stretch Chepsary-Mongokhto and the reconstruction of the odd neck of the Landyshi station”.

Calculations of the investment tariff showed that in order to form sources of investment from 2024, the tariff for coal transportation in the direction of the Vanino-Sovgavan transport hub for three years, starting from 2024, needs to be increased by 28%. “Taking into account the attraction of credit resources, the required increase in tariffs for coal transportation will be about 15%,” the letter says.

Russian Railways declined to comment. “In order to speed up the increase in the carrying capacity of the Komsomolsk-on-Amur-Vanino section, the possibility of establishing an investment tariff that will apply only to transportation along this section is being worked out,” says a source close to the company. “This seems fair, given the rather narrow circle of key stakeholders project”. Such a measure will allow not to impose an additional tariff burden on other shippers, he adds. Coal companies operating through Vanino declined to comment or did not respond to Kommersant’s request.

The head of Infoline-Analytics, Mikhail Burmistrov, does not recall precedents for such tariff setting for individual shippers. In his opinion, the decision to raise the tariff at all sites, including the existing infrastructure, for coal at Vanino is contrary to logic. It would be more logical to take the investment tariff for an additional cargo base, designed for the use of areas under construction. But this raises the question of the need to guarantee the transportation of these goods in exchange for an investment tariff, which leads to the need to introduce a priority for them, and it is not allowed on the railway. Mr. Burmistrov also doubts that there is a regulatory framework that allows Russian Railways to introduce such an investment tariff.

Previously, attempts have already been made to specifically finance the expansion of infrastructure at the BAM and the Trans-Siberian Railway at the expense of individual shippers, but everything came down to a discussion about priority. So, in 2018, Dmitry Bosov offered to build the Severomuysky Tunnel-2 at BAM at his own expense, but in return he asked Sibanthracite for the priority right to use this infrastructure (for more details, see Kommersant dated July 15, 2019). The negotiations were unsuccessful. In 2021, Elgaugol, when discussing the construction of a non-public road to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, was ready to invest in this project itself, but asked Russian Railways for priority access to infrastructure for five years of its construction, and departments and regions opposed this (see “Kommersant” dated 24 and 30 August 2021).

Natalya Skorlygina, Evgeny Zainullin