The cost of expanding the BAM and Transsib has been announced

The construction of the second Severomuysky, Kuznetsovsky and Kodarsky tunnels and a bridge across the Amur, which will increase the transport capacity at the Eastern range to 255 million tons by 2032, will cost significantly less than the entire previous expansion of the main line’s capacity, follows from the calculations of Russian Railways. The price will be 14 billion rubles. for the added million tons of cargo traffic versus 28 billion rubles. within the framework of the second stage of expansion currently being implemented and 52 billion rubles. next phase of construction. Therefore, JSC Russian Railways considers it expedient to build tunnels. But experts note that as the network situation improves, construction targets should be rechecked, since it may turn out that these capital-intensive projects can be done without.

The cost of expanding the BAM and Transsib from 197 million to 210 million tons is 1556.7 billion rubles, or 52 billion rubles. per million tons added. This follows from the materials for the October 26 meeting with First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov (“Kommersant has seen the document”). At the same time, the specific cost of further expansion to 255 million tons with the construction of three tunnels and a bridge across the Amur is much lower – 14 billion rubles. per million tons, which is also lower than the specific costs for the second stage of expansion to 180 million tons, 28 billion rubles. per million tons. The absolute costs of the tunnels and bridge are 622.2 billion rubles, as follows from the document.

According to estimates by Russian Railways and the Ministry of Transport, BAM-3 is provided with a cargo base: as Kommersant reported, as part of the expansion to 210 million tons (substage 3.2), loading will be possible in the amount of 332.6 million tons, and the estimated demand is 537.2 million tons. For sub-stage 3.3 (up to 255 million tons), the figures are 384.5 and 552.5 million tons, respectively.

Almost all additional demand is generated by coal transportation, mainly exported and mainly from the Kemerovo region (see Kommersant on October 11).

Due to the relatively low unit costs of increasing freight traffic within the framework of the third stage, Russian Railways reports that “it is advisable to further develop the railway infrastructure to the tune of 255 million tons.” Russian Railways declined to comment.

A Kommersant source in the financial and economic bloc of the government believes that further expansion of the BAM and Transsib is not required until the tariff model of Russian Railways is changed. The capacity of the main line, according to him, is increasing exclusively for coal cargo, but thermal coal, as a loss-making cargo for OJSC Russian Railways, should be removed from the road, instead organizing coal enrichment facilities in the Kemerovo region in order to increase the profitability of exports while reducing its tonnage. Or, he says, the tariff model should be revised and the cost of transporting thermal coal by rail should be sharply increased.

The head of Infoline-Analytics, Mikhail Burmistrov, notes that it is now difficult to adequately assess the reserves of carrying capacity at the Eastern training ground, not only because active construction is underway, but also because the dynamic model of infrastructure loading (DMLI; for more details, see “Kommersant”) ” dated March 24 and September 11) is not yet sufficiently debugged and transmits unloading bottlenecks to shippers, limiting the dispatch of already loaded cars. Since 2020, car turnover has slowed down significantly, and taking into account additional problems with overloading the access roads of cargo owners, if you design capacities taking into account the current state of affairs without a focus on parallel technological optimization and increasing the efficiency of interaction with cargo owners, there are risks of cost overruns and errors in the prioritization of capital projects construction. It is advisable to wait until a positive effect is obtained from the DMZ, update the carrying capacity, which is now much worse than it should be, and then update the plan. Some capital-intensive projects, he recalls, are still in question, since, for example, for the Severomuysk Tunnel-2 there are alternatives that are significantly less expensive. Mr. Burmistrov also notes that by the time the implementation of the third stage begins, the Pacific Railway will have already been built (private Elsie tracks from the Elginskoye field to the coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk) and the government will have the opportunity to compare and evaluate the effectiveness of Russian Railways as an operator of the construction of infrastructure facilities.

Natalya Skorlygina