The Northern Latitudinal Railway. For what are 707 kilometers necessary?

Prospects of building of the Northern Latitudinal Railway and its influence on development of shelf extractive fields were discussed in Saint Petersburg within the 7th Gas forum on the round table.

The head of the representational office of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Saint Petersburg Alexander Palagin told about the situation in transport branch and the largest infrastructural projects of the arctic region – building of the seaport of Sabetta, the Northern Latitudinal Railway and the bridge across the Ob River. Alexander Retyunin, Editor-in-Chief of RZD-Partner Magazine, the moderator of the meeting, marked significance of the Northern Latitudinal Railway for economic development of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, ensure and increase in safety in Ural region. As he underlines, the project is important also for increase in the role of Russia as an energy power through development of natural resources of the arctic zone. The director general of “Yamal Railway Company” Yakob Kraft shared experience of building and exploiting of railroad networks, having marked basic risks and difficulties on railroads in severe conditions of the Far North. As it is informed in the representational office of Yamal, the executive vice-president of Gazprombank Aleksey Chichkanov outlined principles of financing of the project and evaluated the adopted concession scheme of building of the Northern Latitudinal Railway. As we should remind, the Northern Latitudinal Railway makes 707 kilometers of railroad line, which will connect Yamal with Ural region and the North-West of Russia and will provide communication of the transport system of Russia through the port of Sabetta with the Northern Sea Route. In October of 2016 Russian Railways and the government of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug coordinated the plan of building of the Northern Latitudinal Railway. For Russian Railways it will be the first project on the concession scheme, its cost makes 240 milliard rubles. In addition, Alexander Palagin met with employees of foreign companies; the talk was about prospects of work in the region. The gas forum was organized within the Russian energy week. The largest companies and experts of energy and gas industry from Russia and other countries participated in it. They discussed issues of development of hard-to-reach arctic territories and shelf extractive fields, development of the market of liquefied natural gas and active introduction of gas-motor fuel.