The paths of the program are inscrutable – Newspaper Kommersant No. 1 (7446) of 01/09/2023
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The government has approved a program to bring railroads into a “normative state”, the cost of which, taking into account the purchase of equipment, should amount to 7.6 trillion rubles in 2023-2035. The main part of the funds should go to the overhaul of the tracks, with the largest amount planned for the northwest direction, which has become less in demand with the introduction of sanctions. However, the sources of funding for the program have not yet been fully identified.
The secretariat of First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov said that at the end of December the government commission on transport approved a program for the phased withdrawal of the Russian Railways track complex to the standard level until 2035. The program (“Kommersant” saw the text relevant at the end of December) involves a major overhaul in 2023–2035 of 82.2 thousand km of railway track. More than half will fall on the North-Western test site (44.2 thousand km). It is planned to repair 15.5 thousand km at the Southern test site, and 22.6 thousand km at the Eastern test site. It is also planned to reconstruct more than 4 thousand artificial structures. JSC Russian Railways “Kommersant” confirmed that the program was approved.
As reported in the document, the number of sections of the main railway track with an overdue repair period as of January 1, 2023 was to be 22.5 thousand km, or 17.8% of the deployed length of the main railway tracks, the number of artificial structures in unsatisfactory condition as of January 1 2022 was 12.6 thousand, or 15.3%, among them – 17.7% of bridges and 28.4% of tunnels.
Investments, taking into account the costs of 2022, but excluding investments in track equipment, are estimated at 6.6 trillion rubles. From 2023, and taking into account track equipment, this figure will amount to 7.6 trillion rubles. About 3.8 trillion rubles. will be invested in 2023-2035 in the overhaul of the track, about 2.6 trillion in the reconstruction of artificial structures and improvement of the subgrade. About 1.1 billion rubles more. it is planned to invest in the renewal of the fleet of track and road construction equipment. Costs for 2024–2035 are “indicative” and are subject to updating based on the results of the formation of a forecast for the socio-economic development of the Russian Federation, changes in the parameters of freight turnover, passenger transportation, the financial plan and investment program of Russian Railways.
At the same time, the program does not contain a detailed plan for organizing financing. The document states that the program should be 100% financed by the monopoly, “including through an additional targeted markup on tariffs, fees and charges for the transportation of goods and infrastructure services for the transportation of goods performed by Russian Railways, and other possible instruments of state support” .
In earlier versions (see Kommersant dated December 21, 2021), it was proposed to sharply raise the existing allowance for overhaul. However, in 2023 it is already at the level of 5% (this corresponds to fees of about 90 billion rubles), and in 2024 and 2025 it should increase to 7%. Previously, it was proposed to fix the surcharge at this level until 2035, but now the documents do not mention this. Meanwhile, it was precisely the ambiguity of funding sources that was one of the main obstacles to the adoption of the program. In particular, the Ministry of Economy did not agree on it without confirming the relevance and validity of the cost dynamics, follows from the documents of the Ministry of Transport following a meeting in the ministry on December 16. The representative of the RSPP at the same meeting spoke about the expediency of approving the program only after determining the sources of funding.
Russian Railways notes a number of program risks. As high, the monopoly, in particular, assesses the risk of price pressure, that is, the anticipatory rise in the cost of materials for the superstructure of the track, equipment, machinery and mechanisms, the risk of underfunding and the dependence of the volume of work on the pace of updating the parks of the necessary equipment. The risks of failure to develop the forecast traffic volumes, in particular, at the Eastern range, and the need to adjust indicators are called medium. However, at the end of 2021, when a shorter program timeline was considered (with reaching the regulatory state by 2030, and not by 2035), serious risks of non-export of goods (275 million tons in 2020–2030) were predicted only in this configuration, and when the deadlines were extended until 2035, as expected, they were to be removed.
The head of Infoline-Analytics, Mikhail Burmistrov, believes that the main question is how Russian Railways is able to implement such large-scale plans without prejudice to key projects, primarily the Eastern Test Site, that is, to mobilize labor resources, equipment, and so on. It would be advisable to correct the distribution of work in the short term, he believes: now the issue is insufficient attention to financing on the approaches to the ports of the south, where work should be intensified, while in the northwest they can be attributed to a later date.
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