Russia (bbabo.net), - Products and other goods to the Arctic regions of Yakutia can be sent by sea directly from St. Petersburg. Smolny and Yakut partners are now developing a roadmap for the project. Yakutopttorg, the main operator of northern delivery, has calculated that this is one of the most profitable and promising routes.

You can get to many parts of the Far North only by water during navigation - from May to mid-October. During this short period, food, fuel, medicines are brought there. If they don't arrive in time, the northerners will have a hard time in the winter. This seasonal delivery is called northern delivery, and 25 regions of the country participate in it.

Products are delivered to Yakutia today according to the following scheme: by rail to the village of Nizhny Bestyakh, and from there to the regions of the republic - by ships of the "river-sea" class. As a result, the delivery of 1,500 tons of cargo costs 28.5 million rubles - 19 rubles per kilogram. And along the Northern Sea Route, this volume of cargo can be transported for 12 million rubles, that is, for only eight rubles per kilogram. Feel the difference? “Of course, during the navigation period, food prices are going down,” said Elena Kotovskaya, a resident of the village of Zyryanka. “For example, a kilogram of legs costs from 230 to 280 rubles. other products are also becoming more expensive, so the idea of ​​transporting goods from St. Petersburg is reasonable.”

Let's look at the map: where is St. Petersburg and where is Yakutia. It would seem, how can this be beneficial? But there is the Northern Sea Route. And from the city on there is a proven exit to this sea route. In 2021, the city's enterprises sent more than 311,000 tons of products via the Northern Sea Route to Norilsk, Magadan, Dixon, Pevek, Khatanga and other Arctic ports. Vessels from St. Petersburg go along the Baltic, Northern, Norwegian, Barents Seas and enter the Northern Sea Route. It turns out a hook. But logistics consists of many components. Experts calculated that in the Northern capital it would be cheaper to collect cargo for Yakutia from local manufacturers or suppliers from the central regions. It is expensive to transport them, for example, to Arkhangelsk or Murmansk by rail, and cargo can be delivered to St. Petersburg by cheap inland waterways.

St. Petersburg and Yakutia have long been looking for new transport links within the framework of a cooperation agreement concluded at the time between the Arctic Committee of the Northern Capital and the Ministry for the Development of the Arctic of the Republic of Sakha. But right now, all components - from commodity prices to supply chains - have converged in favor of this route, Smolny said. As Nikolay Alekseev, the head of Yakutoptorg, noted, water transport is considered one of the most profitable, but the region faced difficulties when delivering goods along the rivers - due to insufficient depths, the vessels had to be loaded incompletely. In addition, at first the cargo still had to be brought by rail. "We calculated the route along the Northern Sea Route from St. Petersburg to the village of Chersky and got a result that is twice as profitable as the existing logistics schemes," Alekseev said.

It is too early to talk about the date of commencement of transportation along the new route - the road map of the project is currently being developed. The region calculates the volumes of cargo, types of products, the timing of their delivery. Then agreements with suppliers and carriers will be concluded. "In order to get involved in the organization of northern delivery, St. Petersburg has all the necessary transport and logistics potential," believes the governor of the city, Alexander Beglov. "This is one of the largest transport hubs in the country, a center for the exploration and development of the Arctic zone."

According to the calculations of experts, the best way to deliver the northern deliveries is from St. Petersburg to the Yakut village of Chersky (near it is Zeleny Mys, a large port on the Northern Sea Route with storage facilities). One and a half thousand tons of cargo can be immediately sent along this route, which will reach in just 20 days. And for the whole season, it is possible to deliver up to nine thousand tons of food, fuel and other cargo. The final decision will be made by summer.

Now oil products are transported to Yakutia from Arkhangelsk and Murmansk, the rest of the products are transported from Krasnoyarsk and other cities. All this is delivered in small batches, which increases the cost of transportation and affects prices. "The village of Chersky is important for Yakutia," notes the director of the consulting company Gekon, a member of the scientific council under the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Grigoriev. Chersky deliver goods, which are then sent through winter roads to other places. As a rule, northern delivery is carried out by small ships. If you organize delivery from St. Petersburg, its advantage will be the ability to accumulate large cargo lots and take them out on large ships."In St. Petersburg it will be cheaper to collect cargo for Yakutia from local manufacturers or suppliers from the central regions

But the route along the Northern Sea Route will be advantageous only if the cargo is formed in a timely manner. “They need to have time to send them at a favorable time for shipping,” emphasizes Mikhail Grigoriev. “Do you remember that at the end of 2021, dozens of ships were idle on the Northern Sea Route waiting for icebreaking assistance? One of the reasons for this was the late allocation of funds for the delivery of socially significant cargo and, as a result, , their later accumulation at the terminals of Arkhangelsk, Murmansk. This led to the fact that the ships went beyond the comfortable "window" of navigation. And ice assistance is expensive."

Opinion

Elena Golomareva, Chairman of the Committee of the Parliament of Yakutia on Indigenous Minorities of the North and Arctic Affairs:

- I remember how in Soviet times food and essential goods were delivered to Yakutia along the Northern Sea Route. For the inhabitants of the Arctic, these were the most long-awaited flights. But in the 1990s, everything collapsed - the supply through the Northern Sea Route stopped, and the capacities eventually fell into disrepair. The fact that the northern delivery was paid attention at the federal level is a great joy for us. The logistics that are being discussed now have been tested over the years. And most importantly, this will help solve the main problem: products that take a long time and expensive to bring to the North often turn out to be of poor quality and expired. In addition, most of the assortment is imported by entrepreneurs, but their prices, as a rule, are simply sky-high. We hope that with the opening of the route from St. Petersburg, all these issues will be removed.

bbabo.Net