"Kommersant" learned about the request of the coal miners to redirect cargo

Coal companies, whose export shipments have lost priority at the Eastern range, proposed to remove all transit containers from the BAM and the Trans-Siberian Railway, reorienting them to Kazakhstan. This was reported by Kommersant with reference to the minutes of the meeting of the Energetika commission under the State Council dated March 29.

According to the newspaper, the commission recommended that the government, among other measures to support the coal industry, “work out the issues of minimizing up to the complete exclusion of transit transportation of goods in containers along the railway infrastructure” of the BAM and the Trans-Siberian Railway “until the effect of external sanctions pressure is lifted.”

The protocol states that the rules of priority for the transportation of goods introduced by Russian Railways after the suspension of the non-discriminatory access rules (NAP), “in the opinion of the largest coal mining companies, introduce the priority of transit transportation of container cargo, establish priority for coking coal and anthracite in export supplies, determine the transportation of thermal coal residual principle.

Coal miners indicated that a change in the established order could lead to “a breakdown in contracts, default on obligations, shutdown of enterprises, reduction of jobs in the regions, reduction of taxes and foreign exchange earnings.” According to their calculations, transit containers take away from the infrastructure the capacity equivalent to 60 million tons of coal, and RUSSIA, receiving $30 from each transit ton, misses $600 of export earnings.