The Railways is formally no longer a monopoly, but rail transport did not become more efficient
The programme of railway reform, the Russian government approved on 18 may 2001 in Short we can say that its slogan is efficiency in everything. It was expected that by the year 2010, will form the market of railway transport services, reduce the cost of transportation of goods, etc. According to the President of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin, the situation on the railroad has not improved. About it in the beginning of the year wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich.
Extra cars
The main problems of the market, according to Yakunin, the excess number of wagons. (Russian Railways in 2013 handed over the last wagons to its subsidiary Federal freight company.) Park of cars of today — 1.2 million pieces, and for transportation needs 900 000-950 000. It "limits the capacity and agility of the infrastructure to impede the flow of traffic and reduces the speed of delivery," writes the President of the Russian Railways. Agree with him and train operators, it is seen from materials of non-commercial partnership "Council of participants of the market of services of operators". In them the growth of surplus rolling stock (both relative to the volume requirements for the carriage of goods, and carrying and processing infrastructure capacity) was noted as a negative factor.
The speed on the network of Russian Railways since 2007 (the year of the historical maximum performance RZD) decreased by 21% to 234 km per day, quoted Yakunin. Loading decreased by 7% to 1.2 billion tons, the Turnover of the car has increased from 11 to 16.9 days. The average performance of each car decreased from 2007 by 18% to 4300 km per wagon per day. The loss of each wagon were 5.9 days.
To increase the speed of movement of cars, Railways together with shippers working on the routing of shipments in bulk, which allows to minimize the sorting of wagons and other shunting operations, says a company representative. Russian Railways has developed a mechanism for sending freight wagons according to the schedule, he continues, it gave results: on average in 2013, route speed route (one consignment the whole composition) of shipments amounted to 525 km/day, and accelerated container trains — 861 km/day. In the first quarter of 2014 the route speed of container trains increased by 3.6% to 920 km per day, says the representative of the monopoly.
The representative of the First cargo company (PGK, the largest railway operator in Russia, belongs to structures of Vladimir Lisina) said that the speed of the network determines the market: when there is a congestion of wagons at reduced speed. "But this is not what the road became worse to work," he says.
Empty across the country
"The capacity of the Railways is increasingly used for the transport of goods and for movement of empty cars", — says Yakunin officials. In 2013, for the first time after the crisis of 2008, the collection declined by 2.8% to 1,234 billion tons and cargo turnover increased 1.7 percent to 2.83 billion ton-kilometers. The turnover taken into account and empty flights, the number of which has increased, and the increase in transport distances, explains the General Director of Agency "Infoline-Analytics" Mikhail Burmistrov. Because of the growth in empty run costs are rising rail operators (they have to pay for the movement of empty cars) and Railways, said the expert. The costs of major railway operators (under RAS) in the past year increased from PGK — 15% to 89.3 billion rubles, the Federal freight company (FGK, "daughter" RZD) is 22% to 51 billion rubles. the cost of the Railways also increased by almost 1% to 1.02 trillion rubles due to the reduction of loading falling revenues companies: FGC — 21% to 52.9 billion rubles, PGK — 13.3% to 103.6 billion rubles Decreased the revenue of Railways, the company in 2013 — 0.7% to 1.36 trillion rubles.
Russian Railways is trying to improve dispatching and reduce empty running: in the beginning of the year, the company offered the operators to give her the management of empty flights. This monopoly need cars, Yakunin said last fall about a third of the gondola fleet is 300 000-400 000 units. Yet to give the Railways a part of the gondola (114 000) and control empty flight only agreed FGC. What the outcome of the negotiations with the First cargo is unclear.
Top Manager of a large operating company told "Vedomosti" that the operators do not consider the obvious benefit from the transfer of the Railways empty leg flights. And according to Burmistrova, this scheme is beneficial only to the operators with a large Park and a large share of empty run — such as PGK (195 000 cars in the property) and kgf (165 to 500 cars). Non-profit partnership of operators recently suggested: a temporary moratorium on the granting of network numbers to new freight wagons (with the exception of the innovative cars or acquired to replace written-off). Should the number of railcars to optimize depending on the volume of traffic and the bandwidth of the paths, says the partnership in his report.
The number of carriages on the rail network can be reduced if the government will toughen the rules for extending the service cars; this initiative is discussed in the second year. A member of one of the operator companies said that tighter rules will make the extension more expensive than now, and they have "no choice — have to dispose of the car." To spur demand for new cars (with improved performance), the government plans in 2014-2016 to subsidize interest rate on lease payments, and Russian Railways provides for buyers of such cars tariff discount.
More every year
Costs to shippers for rail transportation is growing every year, says Burmistrov of "Infoline-Analytics". The cost of transporting oil to the refinery from LUKOIL?? (railway freight company separately, not allocated) in 2012 increased by 17% to $1.24 billion last year and by another 1.9% to $1.26 billion Costs to Rosneft for transportation by rail of goods to the oil refinery in 2012 decreased by 1.3% to 3790 rubles. per ton, but in 2013 increased by 1% to 3830 RUB But have the oil companies there is an alternative rail transport duct, said Burmistrov.
Some shippers switch from rail to road transport. Thus lower traffic volumes in covered wagons, it follows from statistics of Railways. Transportation of cement fell by 8.4% to 5.8 million tonnes in the first quarter of this year, building materials — 9.5% to 30.7 million tons, nonferrous metals — by 6.7% to 4.6 million tons has Grown, however, the transportation of timber by 11.7% to 9.9 million tons per year transport switches to 10% of goods, says an employee of the Railways. Recently, the PGA and the PGA asked the railway and PGK — and even the Federal tariff service (FTS) to unify the tariff for transportation of cargoes in boxcars. FTS agreed. This, according to an employee of one of these companies will help to recover some of the cargo.
Worse than those who do not have the possibility to switch to other modes of transport, continues Burmistrov. He cites the example of coal company: for example, the cost of SUEK for the transportation of coal by rail in 2012 increased by 7% to $1.59 million
The tariff corridor
Last year the Federal tariff service allowed Russian Railways to provide shippers a discount (or premium) rate. In the past year monopoly basically gave companies a discount from 1 June 2013 NLMK?? ? Vladimir Lisin got a discount of 11.8% on export shipments of ferrous metals to the ports of the South and the Northwest, "NOVATEK"?? Gennady Timchenko and Leonid Mikhelson and 8.3% for transportation of goods on a number of routes. This year, the Railways gave a discount of 4% on the transportation of ferrous metals from the station Magnitogorsk-Gruzovoy (Chelyabinsk region) for export and in Russia, according to the materials of the FTS.
At the end of last year, the Board of Directors of Russian Railways decided to increase by 13% tariffs for transportation of coal from Kuzbass to Far Eastern ports. It is the fastest growing branch. Last year, the growth of loading of coal gave a General collection fall heavily (loading of coal in 2013 increased by 1% to 310 million). But the rates in the end was not improved, and Railways did not explain why.
The Board of Directors changed its mind also to increase the price of transportation of petroleum products, although taken such a decision. At the beginning of the year, the President of "Rosneft" Igor Sechin wrote to the Prime Minister a letter in which complained about the opacity of the patterns of use of the right of Railways to raise or lower fares and proposed to deprive them of the tariff corridor.