Russia has settled down to China
Ruslan Baysarov’s Bamtonnelstroy-Most and Gazprombank are considering the possibility of participating in the construction of a railway bridge across the Amur to restore the Dzhalinda-Mohe border crossing. At first, they plan to display the crossing in a mixed mode – by ships in summer and by road in winter, and then move on to the construction of a railway bridge, for which they also unexpectedly restore a 60 km section of the railway to Jalinda. The project is still undergoing a feasibility study, but is already included in the plans of the Ministry of Transport.
Bamtonnelstroy-Most and Gazprombank are taking part in the construction of a new railway border crossing in China, Jalinda-Mohe. “A very interesting project, in the near future we will make a detailed proposal with Gazprombank, and if the government of the Amur Region supports it, we will proceed to this project,” Ruslan Baysarov, the main shareholder of BTS-Most, said at a meeting taking into account the Amur Region on September 5.
Gazprombank confirmed that they are interested in financing this project.
The Jalinda mixed checkpoint operated until 2008. Now, according to the administration of the Amur Region, there are no buildings, structures, communications, equipment and even fences in it, their restoration is impossible.
The new crossing is planned to be built in two stages.
At the first stage, it is planned to create a mixed border crossing – during the navigation period by ships, and during the freezing period – by road. In the future, it is planned to build a railway crossing with a bridge across the Amur.
Now the project is in the stage of financial and economic justification, its cost is not disclosed.
Vedomosti At the end of July, they wrote with reference to the presentation of the Ministry of Transport that the Jalinda-Mohe crossing is calculated among three border crossings and thousands of kilometers of tracks, for which they plan to allocate $30.8 billion by 2030.
The cargo base of the passage in the presentation materials is estimated at 20 million tons of coal, metal, ore and general cargo per year. However, representatives of the region themselves estimate it higher: 20 million tons from Kuzbass, 20 million tons from southern Yakutia, and at least another 5 million tons of cargo, including products from a methanol plant (Grigory Berezkin’s ESN group project).
There are two main problems. The first is the full perspective of the railway line from Skovorodino to Dzhalinda, 60 km long. According to the indicators of the region, Russian Railways is ready to invest in this project without fail. Investments are also taking place on the Chinese side, since Mohe is approximately the same distance from the border. Russian Railways declined to comment to Kommersant, noting that the project parameters are being met.
The second problem is the construction of a bridge, for which a target is being identified now. At the moment, according to the owner, specific preliminary technical and economic parameters make up a group of partners – technical, financial and logistical.
The head of Infoline-Analytics, Mikhail Burmistrov, believes that now, when China is obviously becoming a successful and uncontested trading partner of Russia, new border crossings are needed more than ever, since they allow unloading approaches to the ports of the Far East. Now there is no need to fear that such infrastructure belongs to the unclaimed, he says – everyone will be loaded. “Yes, China continues to limit the rate of acceptance of Russian cargo due to the policy of zero sensitivity to the coronavirus, but we are not doing anything about it – only a developed infrastructure on our part, coordinating with the Chinese parliaments, increasing the acceleration of operations and guarantees the safety of the cargo.” he believes.