Sakhalin Bridge is selected for support

The project was proposed for concession.
21.08.2018
Kommersant
Origin source
RZD proposes to build a bridge to Sakhalin worth 540.3 billion rubles. with the help of a concession. The potential concessionaire may be given different parts of the project - only a six-kilometer bridge, a bridge with a railway or all of the above with a new port on Sakhalin. According to Kommersant sources, all concessions in the railway sector are more risky for the state than for the investor. But economically viable projects have the prospect of some compensation for these risks, and the fundamentally unrequired bridge to Sakhalin does not. Experts consider it rational to divide concessions into port and road infrastructure.

OJSC RZD proposed to build a bridge to Sakhalin on concession, follows from the presentation (there is a "Kommersant"), directed by the monopoly in the departments. This is one of the old infrastructure projects, reanimated in 2017 and quickly approved by the authorities. Formally, the idea was put forward by Irina Shpakovich from the Khabarovsk Territory in a straight line with the president in June 2017. Now the bridge is already in the investment program of Russian Railways (the costs are estimated at 290.3 billion rubles.), The feasibility study for 2013 is updated. The project includes a railroad 585 km long from the Selikhin station on the Komsomolsk-on-Amur-Vanino line to the Nevelskoy Strait and then to the Nysh station on Sakhalin, and the bridge itself is 6 km away. The cost of the whole project without VAT is 540.3 billion rubles, of which the bridge is 252.8 billion rubles. The construction will take place in 2018-2023.

The greatest doubt was caused by the cargo base: today the freight traffic between Sakhalin and the mainland is 2.5 million tons, by 2030, with the bridge, it will amount to only 8.5 million tons. A coal port in Sakhalin Ilyinsk was proposed (see "Kommersant" on May 16 ), which would increase the cargo flow to 46.9 million tons (up to 23.4 million tons of Russian coal from the mainland and up to 10 million tons from Mongolia).

In addition to Russian Railways, the project should be financed by the budget (100 billion rubles), the Far East Development Fund (90 billion rubles) and the Sakhalin Oblast Development Corporation (60 billion rubles). A zero tax rate on property before 2073 is also proposed.

The presentation specifies three options for the concession object: only the bridge (252.8 billion rubles), the entire road, except for the port (540.3 billion rubles.), And all facilities with the port (570.3 billion rubles.). Economic efficiency is calculated only for the variant of the Selikhin-Nysh line together with the modernization of the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian Railroad financed by OJSC RZD (total 1.12 trillion rubles). This option has a net present value (NPV) of 298.7 billion rubles, an internal rate of return (IRR) of 8.4%, a discounted payback period of 26 years. Separately for the Selikhin-Nysh line, a discounted payback period (11 years) and budgetary efficiency (547.2 billion rubles) are indicated, all of this taking into account 250 billion rubles. state support.

A Kommersant source familiar with the situation says that in existing concessions the state takes on substantially more risks than the concessionaire, but this is offset by the economic efficiency of the projects. In ineffective projects, state risks would be higher, Kommersant source said, and in this project it is difficult to single out the interested party for the purposes of concession (it could be Russian Railways, but it can not be the main participant of the project company). Another interlocutor of Kommersant notes that construction on a direct government order would have been much cheaper in terms of raising funds than concessions. The Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Finance and the Economy Ministry told Kommersant that such a proposal has not yet been received. In JSC Russian Railways refused to comment.

"In the decision to build a bridge, there is more politics than economics, so, for a more precise economic analysis, it is advisable to bring the project to the public level within the concession proposal, which requires more substantial study and involvement of private business," says Mikhail Infoline- Burmistrov. In his opinion, any of the variants of the "big" concession works, because in isolation from the road and port the bridge does not make sense. The expert believes that the most rational option will be two mutually related terms and parameters of concessions: the port is built by one group of investors, and the road and bridge are a consortium headed by Stroygazmontazh (SKM) Arkady Rotenberg (building the Crimean bridge). The SGM refused to comment until the official documents on the project were received.

Officials

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