Renan Filho wants to review renewed railroad contracts – 04/26/2023 – Panel SA

The Minister of Transport, Renan Filho (MDB-AL), intends to open negotiations with railway concessionaires that renewed their contracts in advance.

The idea is to call the companies if the indications of errors in calculations in the value of the grants (parcels for the right to operate the railways) and in the investments to be made in the next 30 years are confirmed.

When analyzing the contracts renewed during the Jair Bolsonaro administration, the technical area realized that the load criteria used as a reference for calculating the values ​​(grants and investments) are undervalued.

People involved in the discussions claim that the average annual growth in the volume of cargo transported by the railroads was 5% per year. However, what was considered in the calculation of values ​​for the early renewal of contracts was 0.5% per year.

The ministry is still going to detail these contracts to find out if, despite the differences in loads verified, other variables were included in the calculations.

According to ANTT (National Land Transport Agency), MRS (with the southeast network) and Vale (Vitoria-Minas and Carajás Railroad) signed the renewal.

The renegotiation, however, will be a process after the definition of the new methodology for early renewal contracts.

The prediction is that the new parameter will come into effect upon signing the FCA (Centro-Atlantic Railway), which is currently negotiating with ANTT and the government.

Early renewal has become an important tool for the government because it brought mandatory cross-investments, opening possibilities for large-scale projects to be carried out without Budget resources.

Vale, for example, committed to investing around BRL 300 million in the construction of a section of the Fiol (West-East Integration Railway) when renewing the concession of the Carajás Railway.

It will also disburse R$ 2.7 billion to start work on the Fico (Midwest Integration Railroad), which connects to the North-South Railroad between Mara Rosa (GO) and Água Boa (MT). It was a counterpart for the renovation of the Vitória-Minas Railroad.

With Diego Felix

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