Russian Railways will rapidly expand approaches to the Black Sea ports

Russian Railways plans to expand the capacity of railway approaches to the ports of the Azov-Black Sea basin to 150 million tons by 2030. Prior to this, the nearest plan was 131 million tons by 2025. Analysts note that the load on railways in the southern direction is growing due to both increased demand from shippers and growing competition from passenger traffic. Kommersant’s interlocutors in the industry believe that even 150 million tons is not enough, and assure that by 2030 more than 200 million tons of throughput capacity are needed.

The next stage in the development of approaches to the ports of the Azov-Black Sea Basin (ACB) may be an increase in their carrying capacity by 2030 to 150 million tons. This was announced by Andrey Makarov, deputy general director of Russian Railways, who oversees the construction complex in the monopoly. “According to the instructions that the government gives, we are now developing an action plan with the IEDT Institute so that by 2030 it will be 150 million tons – this is the target bar that we have,” he said. “Two years ago it was less 100 million tons. This figure, he explained, is considered in the context of the revision of the long-term development program (LDP) of Russian Railways, which the company plans to submit by the end of the year. The current plan calls for reaching 131 million tons of carrying capacity by 2025.

As Andrei Makarov explained, funding for the development of approaches to ACHB in 2023 is over 20 billion rubles, which is higher than in 2022.

“At the end of April, we already switched Tikhoretskaya, which was the main bottleneck for some shippers, opened additional transit routes between parks, and the station’s throughput increased by 27%,” he says. “We work at Timashevskaya, Maxim Gorky, Volzhsky stations. Next year we will start work on Salsk, the second stage of Eya and Maxim Gorky. We expect to expand work along the Volga road, along new parks – this will be a large new sorting system that will increase transit for carriers and shippers.”

As Mr. Makarov explained, the key project for the development of the AChB is the bypass of Saratov. “Last year we reached a throughput capacity of 125 million tons,” he said. “Further, no matter what we do beyond Saratov, we can no longer smuggle through it.” According to him, Russian Railways plans to launch a bypass a year earlier: “The standard construction period suggests that we must complete it in 2026, but now we can say that, subject to sufficient funding, in 2025 we can already open traffic on it.”

After the reversal of Russian cargo flows from Europe, the main load fell on the eastern direction, but the southern direction also became extremely in demand.

Loading at the ports of ACHB in the first half of the year amounted to 46.5 million tons, which is 1.3% less than a year earlier, Russian Railways explains, but in the first five months of the year the dynamics was positive (growth by 1.3%). A significant problem for freight traffic remains the growing passenger traffic in the direction of southern resorts against the backdrop of airport closures, which occupies the resource of carrying capacity. This season Russian Railways plans to transport over 11 million passengers to the southern resorts (see “Kommersant” dated June 15), in June the company transported 3.5 million tourists in this direction, which is 14% more than a year earlier.

The volume of traffic through the ports of the ACHB has grown and will continue to grow at a higher rate than predicted before the outbreak of hostilities, says Mikhail Burmistrov, head of Infoline-Analytics. Now there are serious problems with the infrastructure on the approaches to the ports of the south, for example, noticeable restrictions on the export of coal from Taman and the export of containers from Novorossiysk. Demand growth factors include an increase in passenger traffic, an increase in freight traffic, including those associated with the emergence of new territories in Russia, as well as an increase in demand for export and import transportation through southern ports.

The development of railway approaches in the south is necessary, “this issue has long matured and overripe,” says a Kommersant source in the market.

Demand for transportation is growing faster than supply. The available capacity is not enough even to serve the current cargo flow, due to the lack of capacity, the volumes of transshipment of all types of cargo are stagnating, he says. “Given the plans for the development of port infrastructure, 150 million tons by 2030 is an insufficient volume,” the interlocutor of Kommersant assures. . In terms of activities, the development of railways should be systemic and include locomotives, stations, sidings and main lines, he says.

Delo Group, which is a key player in the container and grain handling market in the port of Novorossiysk, increased container handling in five months by 26%, to 294,000 TEU, and grain — by 1.6 times, to 3.6 million tons. “The throughput of the Novorossiysk station remains the limiting element for increasing the transshipment of goods,” Delo Group notes. “Analysis of existing cargo flows indicates an imbalance between the processing capacity of the Novorossiysk station and non-public routes adjacent to the station (as Kommersant’s interlocutor explains in industry, about one and a half times). The measures envisaged today for the development of the infrastructure of the station are not aimed at long-term and advanced development, but rather at eliminating the already existing shortage of throughput capacity.” Delo Group of Companies believes that it is critically important to complete the implementation of the Integrated Development of the Novorossiysk Transport Hub project in 2024, and then “to carry out work to update the cargo base and traffic volumes in the direction of ACHB for the term until 2030.”

Natalya Skorlygina