Gazprom and Russian Railways signed the agreement on construction of the Northern Latitudinal Railway

The companies “Gazprom” and “Russian Railways” concluded the agreement on fulfillment of the largest arctic infrastructural project “Creation of the Northern Latitudinal Railway”.

In Moscow the document was signed by the chairman of “Gazprom” Aleksey Miller and the president of the Russian Railways Oleg Belozyorov. The sides are ready to set cooperation on fulfillment of the Yamal project on building of the Northern Latitudinal Railway on the mutually profitable basis. As we should remind, Russian Railways and Gazprom are investors of the project within the concession agreement. Yamal participates in the project, co-financing construction of the bridge across the Ob River. The project supposes creation of 707 kilometers of the railroad corridor, which will connect the Northern Railway and the Sverdlovsk Railway and will provide communication between industrial centers of Ural region and the arctic territory of Yamal. Organizational-legal and financial models of the project were elaborated. Creation of the Northern Latitudinal Railway is the basis for integrated development of Yamal-Nenets supporting area and formation of the railroad corridor Obskaya - Bovanenkovo - Sabetta, as the press-service of the governor of Yamal informs. Objects of the concession agreement will include a railroad part of the bridge across the Ob River with approaches, a linear section “Salekhard - Nadym (Khorey)”, a railroad part of the bridge across the Nadym River; its motor road part was input to operation in September of 2015. At the expense of Russian Railways it is planned to develop railroad approaches to the Northern Latitudinal Railway, at the expense of Gazprom – to reconstruct a section “Nadym (Khorey) – Pangody”. The total planned amount of investments to the project makes 236 milliard rubles. The governor of Yamal Dmitry Kobylkin underlines that this infrastructural project will connect the west and east of the region, will provide access to strategic reserves in the Arctic and also will become the flagman of economic transformations for the whole country. The Northern Latitudinal Railway is a very serious project from the point of view of fulfillment. But exactly such projects are locomotives for the whole country, as he says. The project “The Northern Latitudinal Railway” is being fulfilled in conformity with the list of instructions of the President of the Russian Federation. This is a good project, very necessary for economy, because it will diversify transportation system of the country, will unload the Trans-Siberian Railway, as the President of Russia Vladimir Putin said on the yearly press conference. The head of the state expressed confidence that fulfillment of the project would take place and, in his opinion, “the sooner, the better”.