Belkomur project gets approval

Victor Olersky:

- It seems to be meaningless to expand Russian and foreign ports without development of long-distance railway tracks. There is no doubt, the Belkomur is a 100-percent urgent project.

Oleg Chirkunov:

 - Belkomur – it is the White Sea, Komi and Ural. If you lay a straight line from Yekaterinburg to Arkhangelsk, it roughly corresponds to the line that should appear.

In Bereznyakovsky-Salikamsky industrial cluster the key business is the production of potash. In 2006-2007, the government sold to investors new deposits for fabulous sum – 60-80 billion rubles. But how they will transport the cargo from there? How to export the product, for which the investors have started making such investments?

For example, annual shipments of potash only through the Solikamsk-Bereznyakovsky transport hub today reach around 10 million tons. In 2015 with the launch of new mines there will be 15 million tons to be transported. And do you imagine the scale of transportation! If today we are seriously talking about shipping 60 million tons through the Northern Sea Route that would be just a quarter of the tonnage. And that is only one product.

What began to happen with loads on the traffic arteries in 2008, when the economy was on the rise? In 2008, we realized that we can not deliver that volume of goods to the existing main lines. The Trans-Siberian Railroad’s branch line has been congested and the railway itself is no longer able to handle the cargo flows. The railroad has to pass containerized cargo in order to ensure standards of delivery and passenger trains. When it has to handle other cargoes, it ceases to perform its direct function.


The task of Russian Railways, Ministry of Transport it to redirect somehow the loads from the Trans-Siberian Railroad. That time the interests of all parties coincided: of the regional businesses, the Ministry of Transport and RZD. Actually, when everyone had been ready, we were able to implement the construction through the Investment Fund. There had been a positive decision of the Investment Committee. But the crisis had broken out and there was a decision to shelve all of the Investment Fund’s projects, saying the least.

This is the current situation.

We understand that the development of our industrial hub requires this railway. But it is obvious as well that it is urgent not only for us but for all the goods that come from the Urals and Siberia. So the calculation gives both us and for northern ports at least 30 million tons.

What are my predictions, how the things will develop and what possible solutions the business and the government would find to solve the problem of this hub, including the problem of Trans-Siberian Railroad?

First decision, a local, particular one, is the use of river ports (Kama, Volga) to shift some volume of the cargo to inland waterways. But this is not what we are discussing now, there are also not a few problems.

The second solution, which I believe to be wrong, impossible, is boosting the capacity of the existing railway from Perm, Solikamsk and Trans-Siberian Railroad, as it may solve only the problem of this part of railroad. In this case, the country will spend roughly about 20-30 billion rubles. But if the state and investors will spend 3-4 times more instead of making the road to the south along the existing line, they will remember the Belkomur project and its direction to the northern port, they will get a functional main line, which might help solve many problems.

But even this project has two options. There are the so-called southern and northern sections, first running from Salikamsk to Syktyvkar, and the second - from Syktyvkar to Arkhangelsk. In theory, only the implementation of the southern section will give us the opportunity to get access to existing tracks, but then the goods will most likely be carried to the port of St. Petersburg.

If the project will be implemented in full - the southern and the northern sections - then all of these goods, from 20 to 30 million tons, will come to the northern ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk and become a serious foundation for development of business there, including the Northern Sea Route.

Everyone who is interested in the development of the NSR, I think, should strive for the success of Belkomur to run it the northern seas. 

Victor Olersky:

- I am a supporter of this project too. I understand that there is no alternative to it and sooner or later Belkomur will be implemented, but the transport logic suggests that it can be extended not only to Archangel, but also to Murmansk. And the logic of building Belkomur consists in the fact that if we do approach this diagonal, then the goods which would move to the ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, will obstruct flows of cargoes delivered to the North-West, in particular, to Primorsk, Ust-Luga and St. Petersburg. That is, delaying Belkomur project, we are deteriorating the situation with delivery of cargo to the ports in the North-West.

But it is clear that the Belkomur project will be implemented through joint efforts of private investors and the federal budget. To initiate the project, we need to complete the feasibility study.

Oleg Chirkunov:

- The feasibility study has been done. The next stage is the preparation of project documentation. The cost of the project documentation is about 3 billion rubles.
There are might be different assessment of the sum. If the question is: find the funds for the design, and you’ll get the guarantees that the development strategy of "RZD" (where Belkomur is part from 2015) will be implemented. If we invest money in conjunction with other federal regions, and it won’t be shelved, than we are willing to invest the money.

There is another way. We are now working with investors to create a consortium, but, unfortunately, only for the southern part of the line. Yet we have great chances that we’ll find these investors.

So, I think that we’ve done major part of the job.

Victor Olersky:

- I think everybody will soon understand it is necessary.

Murmansk is developing today, as you know there is a big target program being implemented. Russian Railways is facing with the dilemma - to complete major upgrade of Volkhovstroy-Murmansk or think about the project Belkomur.

We have agreed with the management of RZD, that we will soon sit down and think about where we go.

 
Nadezhda Malysheva