MOSCOW: The Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District will invest in construction of the Northern Latitudinal Railway 8.2 billion rubles (about $144 million), the District’s Governor Dmitry Kobylkin said on Friday. “Our obligations for the Northern Latitudinal Railway are 8.2 billion rubles,” he said. “This refers to a car road – a bridge across the Ob River near Salekhard – we shall face those obligations from 2020.”
The governor said, the region in 2015 already finished a passage of the Railway – a bridge across the Nadym River, which cost was 14 billion rubles (about $246 million). Before that, Nadym could be connected with the “mainland” only by a ferry line, using which depended absolutely on seasons and weather. “The demand for the railway comes both from the regions and from the Russian industrial companies,” he continued. “The confirmed estimation of the cargo turnover is more than 21 million tonnes a year, and it is most important that the road will be built from only Russian materials.” “For construction of only the bridge across Ob, the demand would be for more than 135,000 tonnes of metal parts, sand, rubble, sleepers, rails, reinforced concrete structures for railway lines,” he added.
The Northern Latitudinal Railway is 707 km of rail line, connecting Yamal with the Uralsk and with Russia’s North-West. The railway will also connect the national transport systems via the Sabetta seaport with the Northern Sea Route. In October, 2016, RZD (Russia’s railway giant) and government of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District agreed the project of the future latitudinal railway. For RZD that would be the first concessional project ever. The governor said, the project’s cost is 240 billion rubles (about $4.2 billion). The construction beginning is scheduled for 2018. The project is to be completed in 2022.
