Russia (bbabo.net), - ElgaUgol plans to launch a private railway line from the Elga coal deposit in Yakutia to the village of Chumikan in the Uda Bay of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk by 2025. This was reported in the press service of the company.

The length of the branch will be approximately 500 kilometers, carrying capacity - 30 million tons per year. The cost of the project is estimated at 97.1 billion rubles, excluding inflation. It will be implemented without state support, solely at the expense of own and borrowed funds. The Russian Railways Company (RZD) does not take part in the project.

It is assumed that the branch line will be used to transport coking coal (used in metallurgy) from the Elga deposit to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and its subsequent export transshipment to the countries of the Asia-Pacific Region (APR).

In 2021, 129 million tons of Russian coal were supplied to the Asia-Pacific countries from Russia. Most of it came from thermal coal used to generate electricity. Coking coal is more expensive. After Beijing banned its import from Australia (previously the main supplier of coking coal to the Chinese market), Russian exporters have a real opportunity to fill this niche. China is the world's largest producer of metallurgical products. And he needs a lot of coking coal. In 2020, imports amounted to more than 70 million tons. But so far, the possibilities of Russian exports to the east are limited by the capacity of the railway infrastructure (BAM and Transsib).

The Elginskoye field is the largest in Russia. By 2023, it is planned to produce 45 million tons of coking coal here. The carrying capacity of the existing railway line from the field to the Ulak station on the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) has already been increased to 24 million tons per year. And in the near future it will increase to 30 million tons per year. But the length of the highway is 1.9 thousand kilometers, which greatly increases the cost of transported goods. In 2021, 8.5 million tons of coking coal were shipped from the Elginskoye field to China. In 2023, it is planned to increase the volume of shipments to 30 million tons.

In addition to the fact that the new railway line will increase coal exports to the Asia-Pacific countries and make it more competitive, according to the company, the implementation of the coal mining and infrastructure construction project will collectively create about 20,000 jobs.

The Far East, which is completely unspoiled by excessive infrastructure, will not interfere with the new transport highway. The company clarified that the volume of freight traffic on the railway line is expected to be in excess of the norm, and access to the highway will be provided within the "Rules of non-discriminatory access" - that is, equal accessibility of infrastructure for all carriers.

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